Standard EV News

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know that you are a fast, fast, fast, fast, fast coffee and a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack, a snack with your girlfriend's form, besides themselves the hard-naked flakes for a tea or a fish.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Just one thing that is the dream and the rest, that is to make a washing machine, because you always have your best skills, try the best of the best of fish, and you will be able to get out of the kitchen.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and then off the van.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that I have is the fact that I'm going to be failing at that goal.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But my goal is to use the technology that I have to get this show out on time more frequently.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So apologize about the late show.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get to our EV news, I just want to share something with you that James from True North EV shared with me.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Mark and David shared some really good resources and go back and look at those in the last two shows on where your power comes from.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So David's was in the Ontario Province of Canada and Mark's was in the UK.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, James who also lives in Canada and is true North EVs, he sent along Alberta EV.ca.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a link in the show notes because it's longer than just that.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But you get to see where your electricity is coming from and then you can compare the cost of owning an EV based on where that electricity is coming from.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And or a nice car. So it's kind of cool you can compare the two.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a really good resource. It tells you not only that, but based on the distance driven, how much CO2 you're putting out.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is all based on the electricity rate and the cost per liter of fuel.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway there's a whole big dashboard.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a numbers nerd, this is definitely worth looking at.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Even if you don't live in Canada or if you live here in the United States where we do miles and gallons instead of leaders and kilometers, you just need to convert that.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's still a good source of information.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So the link for that is in the show notes.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: All right. Let's go ahead and start our EV news.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This first thing is just kind of informational the Neo Onvo L60, which is the Model Y equivalent that Neo is putting out under the Onvo brand.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It is reviewing really well. And I just wanted to say that so that if you live in a country where you can get the L60,

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: might want to take a look at it because it is in some cases some of the reviews that I've read.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: There are certain aspects of this car that are better than the Model Y and its cheaper.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Moving on, G-Le, which I've been pronouncing G-Le, but I've been told that it's with a soft G.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So G-Le is looking at manufacturing EVs in Europe.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And I should say that the key word here is looking at or the key words.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not putting anything set in stone, but they want to avoid the tariffs that are going on in Europe over Chinese vehicles.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And so currently they're looking at Poland as an option.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: There's an oldie, but a good ear.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Former Nicola CEO and founder Trevor Milton has to pay Nicola $167 million.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you remember way back when Milton got into a little bit of trouble for faking some videos and making faults in misleading statements.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was convicted in 222, under two counts of wire fraud and two counts of securities fraud.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Basically what he was doing is he was saying that the vehicles that he was working on were further along than they really were.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: In one instance, they found a very slight grade and rolled the semi-truck down the grade and it made it look like the semi-truck was moving under its own power.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't. So the $167 million covers 97% of the $125 million that Nicola had to pay and the close to $46.5 million in legal fees.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So Nicola Motors got away pretty easy on this because Milton said that $167 million is excessive and pointed out rightfully so or maybe not so rightfully.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So who knows who made the decision? There are certainly people in this company that were complicit with this but he pointed out that other board members execs and employees that worked for Nicola at the time were involved in this.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So for him to take the full responsibility and have to pay 97% of this, he thought was a little bit excessive.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, you know, the Nicola semi-truck, the Nicola won, rolling down the hill and saying the Nicola Badger was already built and ready to go.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: They had a whole partnership with the GM and it turns out none of that stuff was true. So GM's deal with them fell apart.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And the Nicola Badger was supposed to be this really cool to commasize or to commasize pickup truck that ran on hydrogen and electric. It was a hybrid which is weird because I think all hydrogen vehicles are pretty much electric at this point, so maybe that was a distinction without a difference.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of GM, GM is slowing their role out of EVs just a little bit but that doesn't mean they've given up on EVs entirely.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Currently, GM is in talks to buy batteries from CATL and that battery plant if that deal goes through that plant will be built here in the United States and create around a thousand jobs.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: In addition to that, they are also working on building out their charging network. GM and EV go will install an additional 400 DC fast charging stations in metro areas in the following states.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York and Texas. And these DC fast chargers will be co-branded as EV go in GM energy chargers.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Now if you're like wait a second, 400 seems like it's way too low. I thought that they were going to build a lot more chargers with EV go that is correct. This is in addition to the 3000 DC fast chargers that they are already currently building out. So they're expanding that network out.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Each location will have at least 20, 350 kilowatt chargers. They'll have canopies and pull through spots. So this is really convenient for folks who are pulling a trailer.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're like wait, when is Tesla going to do this, will I get to that in the Tesla section? Because I do have some news on that as well.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And one last thing, GM is partnering with other companies in all sorts of different strategic areas. GM and Hyundai motor group will explore future collaborations across key strategic areas.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And the goal for this is for them on both companies to decrease expenses and increase efficiencies. So it just makes it cheaper to build these vehicles. Now it's not going to just be EVs.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to co-develop and produce passenger or the plan is they're talking about because nothing's set in stone. It's a non-binding contract at this point, or non-binding memorandum of understanding.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to co-develop and produce passenger and commercial vehicles. And these vehicles are going to be internal combustion engines, electric and hydrogen.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So they're hitting all the different areas of vehicle transportation. Right now the discussions, like I said, or exploratory and non-binding, but Honda and GM have partnered on EVs in the past and the Honda Prologue is built on old team technology, which is GM's technology.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I just keep that in the back of your head. And finally our final story for our EV news, the California Air Resource Board, were a carb, launched a new program.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's called the Drive Clean Assist Program or D-CAP. It's going to provide $242 million in grants and loans for low-income Californians to buy zero emission vehicles. Now, if you exchange a vehicle, so if you have let's say an old Ford pickup truck that you've been driving around in your looking to update that to something more reliable,

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you can exchange that vehicle and receive up to a $12,000 grant to buy or lease a new zero emission vehicle. It doesn't say EV specifically, it just says zero emission vehicle. Now if you don't want to swap your vehicle, or if you want a second car, let's say you have one vehicle, but you need two.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: That's okay. You can get up to a $7,500 grant without swapping your vehicle. So it's still going to help you a little bit. And then you'll have another $2,000 to spend towards EV charging costs.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So basically installing an EV charger in your home, or possibly charging at these DC fast charging stations.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So what exactly falls under zero emissions vehicles? Well that would be cars, motorcycles and e-bikes. It did find it interesting that they included e-bikes because they are super useful. I think this is a good use for that money.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: There's also low interest loans to help ease the cost of buying zero emissions vehicle. Here's where I get stuck a little bit on the program.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Applicants must be at or below 300% of the federal poverty line. Now at first I read this as you have to whatever the federal poverty line is, you have to make 300% less than that. That is not the case. It's 300% over the federal poverty line.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just going to give you an example here in the contidious United States, a family of four, the federal poverty line is $31,200.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So that same family of four at 300% would be $93,600. So folks who are a family of four living in the contidious United States, they would be able to qualify under this if their family made $93,600.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Depending on where you live in California, that's not a lot of money. But anyway if you're listening to this and you're interested in this program and you live in California, I'm going to put the link to the article in the show notes and then I'll also put the federal poverty levels and where they fall and you can kind of see if you qualify or not.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear anything about it, but I think that's a good thing.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: To pay my bills, I use the Patreon to help offset the cost of the show and to upgrade equipment when that needs to be upgraded by software pay for subscriptions that kind of thing.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to support the show financially, you can go to patreon.com for such kilowatt or support kilowatt.com.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to support the show and another meaningful way is recommend to your friends if you think being would find this show interesting, recommend them the show.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it, I would appreciate it. And if you don't like it, I, you know, that's that's fine. I don't know why you're listening but I love that you are listening.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on to our Tesla news.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: We all know that interest rates in the United States are high. So Tesla's got a really good deal for you if you're interested in a new model, why or model three and that is zero dollars down.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And annual percentage rate of 2.49 percent and a 60-month finance term. So considering like I said, we're interested in interest rates are right now.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a pretty good deal.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And I should say it's a pretty good deal in terms of the interest rate. If you buy a model, why long range real will rear wheel drive there you go.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Listen with this same promotion that we just talked about and incentives the federal incentives of $7,500 each get here in the United States.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Your monthly payment is going to be $690, which is not a low number. That's a pretty high number. I mean, interest rate wise you're doing okay.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But payment wise it's still pretty high. You can get a actually a lower interest rate like 1.99 if you put a little bit more money down.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And you can go to the Tesla calculator and play with that. If you want to get this promotion on a model three long range rear wheel drive.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, with the $7,500 tax credit taken off of this zero down 2.49 percent, 60 months you're looking at 563 dollars a month for that.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Moving on to Robo Taxi. We have some Robotaxi news. According to Bloomberg, the Robotaxi event will be on October 10 which I think that part is actually confirmed.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But Bloomberg is reporting that it will be held in Burbank, California at the Warner Brothers studio. Now there's lots of speculation as to why they chose or why they would choose Warner Brothers studio.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Over other locations. I just want to say this, nothing has been officially announced yet other than the date. So take all of this with the green assault but I guess Warner Brothers on their lot does have like it's like a hundred and twelve acres where the car could actually drive around.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that's what I'll show it off. But I've seen this story reported as this is going to take place in Burbank and it's to the best of my knowledge. This has not been officially announced by Tesla.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, Tesla is working on pull through chargers. Remember what we've talking about GM working on their pull through chargers. Tesla is working on this as well.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I will say that there is a supercharger station near a home depot that I go to. I think it's like 56th Street and Ray Road.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's like a Sam's Club and a Home Depot and over closer to the Sam's Club. There's a little supercharger station. Doesn't have very many superchargers there. It's probably got 10.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But one of the cool things is that the charging stations are arranged in a way that can accommodate different EVs. It's not set up like your typical charging station prior to Tesla, just letting Tesla's charge on the supercharger network.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if somebody want to pull up in an R1S, they could easily charge in some of the locations at this charging station. Not all of them. One of the other cool things that it has and I was just there there there day and I saw a cyber truck but it has a pull through.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: This section that's right at the end of the supercharger. Like the block of superchargers is kind of right at the end so you can park next to the supercharger if you had a trailer and you wouldn't have to disconnect.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So Tesla's playing with some different configurations and I think that's pretty cool. Kind of speaking at the same, you know since we're on the topic of the cyber truck I mentioned it.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Tesla's launched Auto Park through cyber truck which is one of those full-suff driving features. I haven't heard maybe somebody with a cyber truck can fill me in on this. I haven't heard what if it how it works but auto park is one of my favorite features when I was testing out the beta for or the superficed trial for full-suff driving. I love that feature. It was magical.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Next up I saw this headline and I thought it was a little disingenuous. So this is an electric headline. It's a Fred Lambert article.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I like electric and I like Fred. I have no issues with this at all. But the article headline is Tesla's self-driving promises are getting weaker on new cars.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well what is this all about? And basically the premise of the article is way back in 2016 when hardware 2 came out. Elon said that every vehicle built after that point in time will be capable of a level 5 full-suff driving.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And we know that Tesla's been removing documentation that said those things from their website and they're kind of changing their messaging on full-suff driving.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Elon at that time made a bunch of other claims and shortly thereafter that still haven't happened yet. So I don't know if this is Tesla getting ready for a legal battle because hardware 3 it's getting harder for Tesla to push out those full-suff driving updates to hardware 3.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the reason for this is, but the articles when you go to buy a new car and you add full-suff driving it doesn't have such grandiose promises.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would argue that Tesla's finally getting to be a little bit more realistic about the capabilities of full-suff driving and not over promising on something that they can't deliver on which I think is actually a sign of maturity.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to say, I do think this is what Fred Lambert is trying to say in his article. However, I thought that the actual wording of the headline is a little bit misleading and a little confusing to be honest with you.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, everybody. That is it for our show this week. I hope you all enjoyed it.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Not sure how the new leveler Mike sound. This is these are all brand new to me. I have it played with it. This is the first time I'm using them.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not super happy with the way it sounds, but I have some things that I can play with in my logic, DAW to kind of sweeten up the audio a little bit.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just going to take me a little bit to kind of dial these in and then there's a bunch of features on the leveler Mike themselves that maybe, you know, like I said, first time using them. So we'll see how it goes. It'll only get better from here.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to thank everybody for listening. I appreciate each and every one of you for being patient with me. I appreciate each and every one of you for downloading the show and listening to the show really does mean a lot. So thank you very much for doing that.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that's it for me. Hope everybody has a great weekend and I will talk to you on Tuesday for sure. It's going to be Tuesday. Alright everybody. Thanks so much.