Electrek Podcast

Podcast: Tesla price cuts, Chevy Bolt EV and EUV unveiling, and more

Fred Lambert | Feb 19 2021 - 3:29 pm PT

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla’s price cuts, the unveiling of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, and more.

The Electrek Podcast is me, Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of Electrek, and Seth Weintraub, founder and publisher of Electrek and the 9to5 network, discussing all our top stories of the week while taking questions from our readers and highlighting the most insightful comments on the site.

The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

Transcription

[00:00:00] Fred Lambert: And we are live for a new episode of the electric podcast. Welcome back everyone. As usual, I’m joined by set one champ. Are you doing today? Set. I’m good. All right. Well, let’s dive right in. We have a few, not too many news. This was kind of a, a slower weeks in in the world, but there was a big weekend with the reading of the bolt E V E V last weekend.

[00:00:21] So we’re going to discuss that old letter M on their show, but we’re going to start as usual with the Tesla news this week. And the, the bigger news this week. I would venture to say, was that the price got for the model S three and model? Y I should say. And yeah, some, some pretty significant price.

[00:00:37] Got, sorry. I’m hearing myself from new things that, well. Hmm, not true. Yeah.

[00:00:46] Seth Weintraub: It’s coming through my

[00:00:47] Fred Lambert: head outside one, two, one, two, one, two. Yeah. I think I’m hearing from right now. It sounds not too bad, man. I don’t know, let us know in the comments if you’re eating the same thing, but I’m I have a lot of feedback and it feels like it’s from a group you’re speaker.

[00:01:00] There’s nothing coming out of your speakers. And you’re saying no, one, two, one, two, one, two,

[00:01:09] this strange. All right. Let’s power on. Yeah. And the CFN price guts, especially for the base version on both mall three and more why the standard range Polis gets down to $37,000 from $38,000. And the model, Y it gets an even bigger price cut from $42,000 to $40,000. So the normal wife for the first time now is under 40.

[00:01:33] And if you remember that standard range, mole wide didn’t exist until last month when it was a. Launched by Tesla. So. So this is a, this is a quick price drop for the, for the new 3m of the, of the electric SUV. But other than that the long range all wheel drive for Baltimore, Wiremold three status saying 47 and $50,000 respectively.

[00:01:56]But the, the, the performance version, interestingly, they get. The price increased by a thousand dollars, which, which adds up to 56, furthermore, three performance and a 61 for the model Y performance. So people are trying to read into what is happening here. Exactly. There’s a lot of different theories.

[00:02:17]Of course the main one, if you follow more of the Tesla of, of, of the, of the Tesla narrative is that we, we adjust the pricing when we make improvement in term of production efficiency and everything. So we pass those on to the consumer in term of in, in order to be aligned with our mission to accelerate the energy transport, all make sense.

[00:02:41] Could be the case here, but there’s also a bunch of different theories here because also we we’ve been talking about the green act that could bring back and significant tax credits and in the U S for perjury, because of course those price changes are in the U S by the way, though, there’s been some, a few other adjustments in other markets, but other than Japan, I don’t think there was anything significant with mode three and more wine.

[00:03:03] So. We discussed last week. Was it last week when we talked about the green act or the week before that? Whenever it was introduced anyway, yeah, it was introduced in Congress and we discussed like they’re going to bring, basically extend the limit from 200,000 deliveries to 600,000, giving Tesla, GE and GM, another 400,000 and more vehicles to, to receive a 7,000 tax student instead of a.

[00:03:32]Of a 7,500 and surprisingly, there wasn’t any specific price requirements in there. Like a lot of other countries are introducing like in Canada where there’s a price limit on the model they can get, they can receive a tax credit. In, in, in Canada we have a, like a 45 and $55,000 limit, depending on some configurations.

[00:03:52]There wasn’t that in in the green act as it was proposed, but. As, as we discuss it, it could change by the time it gets adopted. If it gets adopted, though, it is. Likely. And so some people are speculating that a 40,000 limit might be introduced, which could have created this this price change, especially for the model Y so that the model Y gets accessed, at least at a standard version, could have been also why Tesla even introduced the standard range in the first place.

[00:04:19] Because as you remember even less says that that’s the wouldn’t introduce that version. He didn’t like the range of the vehicle was getting. So of course Tesla is most likely in talks with, with the new Biden administration while we know that they are in talks. I mean, Elan even confirmed that the suggested you suggested to them to introduce a carbon tax, but we also know that Tesla is part of the new Zita.

[00:04:41]Association for electric vehicles in the U S that is pushing for a national national standards and whatnot. So this lobbying group really w people involve in their with know what they’re, what they’re planning and through all the tax credit and everything. So that might be something that I’ve been in talks for a while.

[00:04:58] So Teslas might be making some move to, to take advantage of that preemptively. That that’s my fake on it. But I mean it speak leash of obviously

[00:05:09] Seth Weintraub: 37,000. If you get a $7,000 tax credit brings to the model three below 30,000 bucks, which would be a pretty big deal. So that th you know, obviously $7,000 is the number being thrown around now.

[00:05:21] So that prospect is, is obviously there. And I agree with you, like if, if the green act does have a $40,000 cap, Tesla’s got a model Y for you there. So I think, I think the new pricing makes a lot of sense and clearly you know, less expensive overall. The problem, as we may have mentioned a few times, is that the uncertainty of the act, you know, whether it gets passed or not, and in what form people are gonna wait, like they’re not, who’s going to buy a car now, if it’s not right.

[00:05:50] You know, we don’t know if it’s going to be retroactive. I don’t think it’s going to be retroactive. So Everybody was talking about buying a Tesla now is thinking, well, I’m just going to wait until this comes

[00:05:59] Fred Lambert: through. Yeah, this is, this has been confusing because because it’s a tax credit you think all right, happens in the tax year, but you can deduct from that.

[00:06:08] So if the delivery happened, then if you paid for the cards during that year, it would work. But the way that there was. Raymond in the proposal, at least it didn’t sound like that. It says when did he get adopted? So, yeah, that was confusing. I’ve been trying to, to gain some information from, from sources.

[00:06:24] Of course, like I said, in the past few quarters, the slides tightened up the, the, the, the delivery goal, the, the, the, in the cells, the cells data. But I’m trying to get some information and how this affected the cells, because like you said, I would assume that. That will be quite significant because I mean, especially for standard range, more three 30, $7,000, like 7,000 differences is massive.

[00:06:49]So no one would be buying a car. If you think that there’s even a 50% chance that you could get $7,000 off that car within the next 10 months. So, so yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. So also. For, for the bowl TV, UV that just released those also that, that, that put a big question marks around those cars because They, they could also potentially get a new tax credit at the same time for all the other vehicles that are still on the old program.

[00:07:15] Well, that’s, that’s a $500 more that you want right now, if you, so there’s, there’s a, it’s a to a double edged sword, really, because technically it would bring down the tax credit by 500 bucks for, for the vehicles that are for the Nate that haven’t reached that 200,000 threshold just yet.

[00:07:35] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, either way they should get through this quicker, like figure it out and get it done before for too long, because nobody’s going to be buying fewer people are going to be buying Teslas and GMs until then.

[00:07:47] Yeah. Yeah,

[00:07:48] Fred Lambert: I’m, I’m really curious to see how it’s African DISA sales right now. Yeah. Other than that, I mean, the increase on the performance version without any changes in actual specs as far as I can tell, but as you notice though, is weird about that. They will introduce changes and not show them in the configurator for, for a while.

[00:08:04] So we don’t, we don’t know exactly what might be happening here, but yeah. Interesting price change that happened overnight that two, two days ago. All right. Still talking about the model S to refresh, we had never got that thumb, that call that was supposed to happen, but it’s so we were kind of just working with what we have in term of MLS refresh right now.

[00:08:28] And there’s the big question around the steering wheel that remains, people want to know if the, the butterfly is going to be standard or is going to be an option. Are you even going to be able to have the round around steering wheel? Are you getting able to have the stock or where you really won’t be really done with the stocks and everything?

[00:08:45] So The little development that happened this week is that a test vehicle or testimony as refresh was spotted in Ohio. And and it had the around steering wheel. I said, I said, regular steering wheel in, in quotes, in the In the video because in the article, because I mean, you could argue that the shape of the new steering wheel butterfly shape is not the biggest change to it is the removal of all the stock and all the user interface.

[00:09:12] Now being the forced touch buttons and everything that. Is arguably the bigger change and that’s still the case with that steering wheel. So this is still a new Tesla steering wheel with the forced us button. And you can see even the scrolls of all, you cannot see the force us buttons, but you can see that there’s no stocks only.

[00:09:26] It has to be some forces button on it. And the scrolls a little bit different too, but this is a standard round, a steering wheel. They’re clearly a test vehicle because a little cup here is not very high in that hiding very well. A stop bottom that is standard for prototypes.

[00:09:43] Seth Weintraub: I think that’s not. Legal that way like that, that stop button is supposed to be accessible, not, not covered by it.

[00:09:49] Dixie cup. Yeah, but you know,

[00:09:54] Fred Lambert: someone that someone touches in that veritably, if you, if you do many times and it’s more dangerous to have it in the open like that, then, then to have the cap on it, maybe why interesting seeing things from that picture that, that the, on the prototype that was part of is that, like I talked about.

[00:10:09] The earlier we can see those buttons on the release of Tesla, but I found them in documents that we obtained that said that there was some forced touch button for the drive modes underneath the phone. This is the phone charger right there. That’s in building the center console and there, you can see them clearly because there’s a, put some tape on it with clear Clear indication of park reverse, neutral and drive.

[00:10:32] So, yeah, like I said, when we first talked about, about that, like, I don’t think that’s the removal of the stock, at least for the drive modes and people saying, Oh, now that with the autopilot that is supposed to automatically detect which drive mode to use, that’s a big deal and everything. I think if you don’t like that, I mean, they’re right there.

[00:10:50] They’re really right there. You just click on those and I mean, you have the. You have the, the Mustang Nackey that basically has a dial right. At the same spot that those are, and this is not that different. Really.

[00:11:04] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, compared to some of the other stuff, like the the BMW I three, which has that weird dial on top of the dashboard and Some of the other stuff going on in business actually

[00:11:14] Fred Lambert: kind of normal.

[00:11:15] Okay. Yeah. The, the bigger changes are more significant turn on the user interface will be more like the the blinkers, like the turn signals. That’s people are like, you grew up however long. It was that you’ve been driving cars. It’s always been a stock that you pulling. So that’s, that’s a bigger change, but I mean, If this is a clear indication of Teslas, this, the strategy with, with, with self-driving like the company has been so focused on self-driving so confident about the ability to bring self-driving to market, that the they’ve been making change to the user experience of driving a car and sometimes even lacking in some specific area, because they’re like, yeah, once it’s self-driving and won’t even matter that I feel like that that has been like a a trend for Tesla.

[00:12:02] And even things when you, that you can think like like ends up display. Like, if you, if you drive like one of the latest Audis and BMWs, universities, other vehicle that like more S is obviously going to compete with, they have some very, very good ads of this place. Now in those cars, like they are actually useful.

[00:12:22] They will look great. They’re, they’re, they’re fun to use. And that’s the never, never even invested right too much into that and trying to bring that to market a version of that. And they think, cause they’re like, eh, w w why, why do you need that for when, when it’s sells driving? I feel, I feel that’s one part of the trend and now of course we’re seeing things like getting rid of the turn signals and even the drive modes.

[00:12:45] But yeah, I mean that prototype also that the person that spotted some artists, the owner from the center, Michigan club in, on the Facebook group said that he asked, it was part of the local service center in Toledo. And he, as the service people, if that round steering wheel is going to be an option and they did say yes Now it’s still not on the configurator.

[00:13:05] It’s still not an option. Even though this, those living, you place an order right now for them pneumo ass. And when I asked my sources at Tesla, they said that they haven’t communicated to the soul force. Anything about it being an option, but like we reported the, the image appeared on not.

[00:13:22] Consumer-facing but in the source correlate, this is website with the standards. The round thing will, and just now this, the posted a new video on this Twitter of the very short video of the, this, the plaid winter testing. And it does show that it has around seeing wheels. So,

[00:13:38] Seth Weintraub: yeah. And you should note that that steering wheel that you’re looking at right there, the, the one in the, the sales stuff is the exact same steering wheel that the, the beta Gar at.

[00:13:49] Yeah, yeah,

[00:13:49] Fred Lambert: yeah. But at the same time, like when it comes to the winter testing, I like I would the, the drive modes, the four-star spot, Nike that’s one thing, but the butterfly shape needs to be tested too. I feel like as the butterfly shape does change with other things in term of the driving experience, especially in.

[00:14:08] Things like winter testing where like, if you lose control of the car and everything, that’s, that’s when you, you want to be able, like to turn the wheel properly and everything. And it’s not just about, it’s about configurating the, the, the, the wheels turn a certain amount specifically for the ball of fire shape, because you cannot just do the normal motion of rotating like that.

[00:14:27] So It’s a strange situation. Some, some more clarity would be appreciated, but I mean, you cannot ask too much of the test that these days when it comes down to communications and clarity, Not their forte. Not much with anything coming out of there. Yep. Yep. Yep. I stay with some prototypes sightings. Another Tesla semi was cited this week.

[00:14:51]This times is our friend at the Sacramento, Tesla, Jerome spotted the vehicle in Tuckey Truckee, cert Stuckey, a Truckee. Trucks are old trucking. Yeah. Truckee, California in between Sacramento and Reno, Nevada. So it’s we, we saw one going from the Bay area and was going East and then ended up in Chicago last week.

[00:15:17] And. It was clearly a new test as am I the first one that we’ve seen in the first new one that we’ve seen in three years, but now a second one, the second new one. So the fourth overall test is somebody that we knew about and clearly a different one. There’s a, there’s some changes in the back here that we can see that the forms, the picture, but the back of the other one.

[00:15:37] And it looked like that at all. Maybe, maybe it was going from Fremont. My feeling is that it’s being those prototypes are being built in Fremont and then ship maybe to Gigafactory to have the powertrain cause or the battery pack at least or something like that because we, we know that that that’s where I at this last been installing some production capacity for, for the new, every new powertrain that they’ve been developing.

[00:16:02] Even the mall as the new model, as model acts this there’s, they have a new drive train there and everything that they are they’re building. So it could make sense to make them the same thing for that. That’s a semi, but a very active, easier

[00:16:14] Seth Weintraub: to take the the battery back to Fremont than take the, the old truck to

[00:16:19] Fred Lambert: Yeah, it depends where the truck is going after.

[00:16:22] Like, like, like the last one, if it’s going East and it’s already going the right direction, you would decrease the, sending the batch back the other way. And at the same time, it’s also it also looked like they give they’re not, I you’re not driving it on the roads on the public roads. Maybe, maybe they’re still, they want to do some testing on proving grounds before going on public roads.

[00:16:41]We, we haven’t, we haven’t seen any of those two new prototypes driving just yet. They’ve been on the backup trail so far.

[00:16:52] All right. I’ll. Yeah. So heart goes out to everyone who’s in that situation right now with the blackouts and everything in Texas and in the neighboring States are having issues. Do I know my, my girlfriend is in Mississippi right now and she they, they got a few, a rolling blackouts too. Yeah, that’s a pretty significant wetter for, for this part of the country.

[00:17:09] Really? Yeah.

[00:17:10] Seth Weintraub: Anytime there’s snow in the deep South, it’s going

[00:17:12] Fred Lambert: to be a mess. Yeah. I mean, obviously they are not equipped to, to deal with it in term of like snowplows and everything that comes with it. But yeah, in Texas, it’s the, I mean, it, it showed some massive weaknesses to the electric grid that just couldn’t end-all at all the people cause, cause it wasn’t just the snow, it was the cold, it was, it was extremely cold.

[00:17:33] It was freezing temperature and people were running their electric heater like crazy. And the load on the grid was Also, there was some damage I think, on the grid to from the weather. But the load was was the, the biggest issue, my understanding. And there’s been a ton of really bad few people speculating about what happened.

[00:17:53] And I know that even though, even though I think that the governor of Texas even said that it was because of wind turbine freezing. Yeah. Really it wasn’t. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it was in, in that, Oh yeah. That article. I shared it right there. You see here what went down and you see that every, all the turbo power plants, 25% of the output went down.

[00:18:13] And renewable went down 1%. So, I mean, was a culprit here. I obviously have receipts, the natural gas and the coal power plants that took the biggest hit. But yeah what it did show that it showed that the strength of the power walls and all the others all on battery packs because a lot of Powerwall owners and In Texas started sharing their backup is to read, which was pretty crazy because they were, they were running some, some ruling blackouts, which means that they were planning the blackouts because in places where the grid infrastructure was still located, just couldn’t handle the load.

[00:18:47] They would have to shut down the electricity in section. Of neighborhoods and everything because to, to lower the load, you know, in order to some people to have so many Tricity throughout the day, at least so you can see what it looks like when your grids goes out. So during the same day well, is it the same or at least.

[00:19:06] Well, these are all the same people. I don’t know, 22.5 hours of backup within 32 events. And I don’t know if it’s all on the same day, but you can see here on the same day you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 different events all about between 30 minutes and an hour and 10 minutes.

[00:19:24] So very useful to have your balls during those times. And. If, yeah, if you have it combined with solar during the day, it’s going to replenish itself. And the, she is fine. Air are the test owners club in Austin shared a, a video of a whole neighborhood being plunged at dark, except from one house that has a power, a power wall on right there.

[00:19:48] So you’ve seen a lot of those videos being passed around the. And we’ve seen what we’ve seen. The same thing happened in, in, in Australia a few years ago, then two years and last, what were the last few big wildfire season in California also as, as, as cause a lot of rolling blackouts and, and that’s per the China interest in, in own battery packs.

[00:20:07] And I mean, it really shows that the, the future of a strong electric grid is going to be in these partly in de-centralizing energy storage at the home level. Makes a big difference, I think. Yeah.

[00:20:21] Seth Weintraub: And, and why even have to rely a hundred percent on, on the grid. Like it’s not super expensive and it’s pretty, you know, economical to, to have solar and a battery backup, especially, you know, as prices come down, the grid gets a little bit wonky.

[00:20:40] You don’t even have to think about it. We’ve been in a few out outages, and we didn’t even know we were in an outage because. That’s so quick. Yeah.

[00:20:50] Fred Lambert: I mean, I, the more I think about it, I think your situation with green mountain power and Vermont, is that in my car, I think the have the best approach.

[00:20:59] It has to be some kind of mix between. You can hone your own system. If you want you have your own power wall of your own solar and the either have grid or connected to the grid with net-metering and everything, and add some value to that or subsidize those battery pack like crazy from the electric utility level.

[00:21:20] And I have the advantage of having backup power, a very low cost while your electric utility can use some of that backup power. When needed. Cause I mean, if there was a high mix of that in the grid right now in in Texas, I mean, I don’t know how high it is, environment, it’s still relatively new.

[00:21:38] It’s probably much higher of course, because a lower population and, and they were early with that, with that program. But yeah, you, you you’d have a similar situation in Texas and it would be not as bad for sure. We’ll have better. Yeah. All right. Next news items is the Chevy bolt, EU V and E V. Being unveiled at twin 22 version and are coming this spring, the spring, or this fall coming this year?

[00:22:07] Yeah, the spring. All right. That was early.

[00:22:08] Seth Weintraub: So we’ve been sitting on this for almost a year, like we went out to Detroit and saw these two cars in March of last year. And that the bolt Evie was supposed to be a 20, 21 model that was supposed to come at the end of last year. And then the EEV was supposed to come this year.

[00:22:28]They weren’t supposed to be released at the same time. But Chevy delayed the the bold Eby cause of pandemic, I guess. So, you know, as you can tell, like it’s a upgraded front ends, which some people, like some people don’t like a little bit of upgrade on the back. But the big stuff is inside the interior as much more luxurious.

[00:22:49]It’s like night and day better.

[00:22:50] Fred Lambert: I, that was my biggest, I’m playing with the, with the bowl TV. When I, when I got it. I mean, especially back then when I tried it, it was like, what, 2000? 17,018? Yeah. And like the model I was, I was, I was driving was like 40. $43,000 car and the, in there felt like a $20,000 car.

[00:23:08] So that’s hard, that’s a hard pill to swallow for this. This is a lot closer to it and also the price when we’re going to get to that. But

[00:23:16] Seth Weintraub: yeah. Yeah. So the seats another huge complaint from a boat owners, although I have to say, like I was in, like, I wasn’t really in that campus, he’d seem fine to me.

[00:23:26]But the seats are much more luxurious. The inside’s a lot better thought out. You can see from the pictures, it’s just a much better experience inside. I actually got to sit in it seats felt way better. Yeah.

[00:23:38] Fred Lambert: Outside support looks more significant. Yeah.

[00:23:41] Seth Weintraub: Or lateral support, back support, all that stuff.

[00:23:43]So, you know, compared to the 2020 model, there’s a lot of things to like but is it, you know, is it something that’s going to be Yeah. Are a lot of people going to buy it? I mean, I think so. I think if Chevy put some marketing muscle behind it, I think they could do quite well there, but I don’t, I still don’t really know if they’re making much of a profit on these, these guys.

[00:24:04] Fred Lambert: I mean, the prices are crazy. Where were the prices in there? Is that 30

[00:24:08] Seth Weintraub: 1030 3000 for the EEV.

[00:24:11] Fred Lambert: Yeah, not the wall more 32 33 34. Yeah.

[00:24:16] Seth Weintraub: That’s a, that’s great. And then you throw us another 7,000 on that

[00:24:20] Fred Lambert: and it gets good. Yeah. Yeah. Because of course, Jim doesn’t have access right now to fill tasks. You did, but if it does get renewed, like we think it will, that’s a cheap car.

[00:24:29] I mean, in, in California could cost you like less than $25,000 for a brand new. Both Evie and just a few thousand more for both UV, which is, I mean, not all, exactly what we expected, but like the same car, just a tiny bit,

[00:24:49] Seth Weintraub: really a tiny bit bigger three inches more in the, in the back and like strangely they put three more inches in the front, right?

[00:24:57] Like, why wouldn’t you, I don’t know, keep the front and move more space in the back. I don’t know. But yeah. It’s definitely more roomy inside as well. And I think the big thing for me is that they have the super cruise option on the UV, which for me, that’s a, that’s a big deal. That’s

[00:25:13] Fred Lambert: an option.

[00:25:14] Do we know how much of the cost.

[00:25:15]Seth Weintraub: I don’t know if they broke it out, but there’s a, you know, a version with, with super cruise and everything else. That’s like

[00:25:20] Fred Lambert: 43,000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well the launch edition. Okay. Yeah. Usually it’s a $2,500 option.

[00:25:26] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. Which is, you know, and Tesla’s world where it’s like 10 grand.

[00:25:31]That’s pretty well.

[00:25:32] Fred Lambert: I mean, let’s be like, let’s be fair. It, yeah. It’s more like autopilot, which is included in the price. Right. And then while it’s some other people are getting super cruises Dillard in the standard autopilot. So, which I don’t know if I agree with that, but you don’t need a long time.

[00:25:50] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:52] Seth Weintraub: You can take your hands off, but at the same time, you can only go on roads that GM has blessed, which is

[00:25:57] Fred Lambert: the driver monitoring part of it. 10 times better, the pilots and driver monitoring. But yeah, I mean, I w you know, what I’ll do I think is gonna work great for the UV as if you, for, for Ubur drivers and taxis and whatnot.

[00:26:13]I mean, right. Rideshare. Drivers, I should say that’s what most people use these days, because I remember like when when GM at the Maven thing, and they did that program for, for rideshare drivers with the bolt DV that was super popular and the, they were doing great. Like all the both TV drivers, the Uber drivers that were using the bull TV.

[00:26:33]That I talked to loved it. They said it’s great financially. It makes a ton of sense too, with the driving electric and using that car for for the job. The only complaint is like, For your, your, your passengers are in the back seat and the bold TVs backseat is not bad, but it wasn’t. Wasn’t great either.

[00:26:52]You’re going to have, like you said, three more inches. It’s, it’s a big difference for that. So if you’re writing, if you’re a lot of people are writing as passengers in the back seat the Bolty UVS is a great option. So I think the, and now with the price too, at $34,000, if you get I mean probably going to lease it more.

[00:27:10] I figured like most people lease they’re bolted on by it, but I think it’s gonna be the same thing for ride share owners. So drivers so you had that to it. I think I think it’s gonna, it’s gonna come through with the exact right pricing for that.

[00:27:22] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. So there were two kind of downsides there too.

[00:27:25]One is like, Hey, it’s you know, the bolt EVs and SUV. Why not all wheel drive? So I think a lot of people were hoping for all wheel drive that didn’t happen. It’s front wheel drive only. And the other kind of downer was that the charging speed, the DC fast charging speed fast is still 54 55 kilowatts, which is about half of the speed that most new cars are coming out at.

[00:27:51] And, you know, we, we asked GM about that and they were like, come on, you know, like what’s, what’s the problem. And they were like, look, we’re trying to hit a price point here. You know, this is a dead end platform. We’re not going to, you know, invest in, you know, a faster charging thing when we have the whole Altium line coming down the pike.

[00:28:08] That’s just how it goes. So for, for people who are okay with that, who don’t do a lot of road trips, no big deal. But you know, if you’re, if you’re expecting to charge, I think that quickly it’s, it’s going to be kind of a bummer.

[00:28:20] Fred Lambert: Yeah. I mean, GM strategy on that front is pretty obvious at this point.

[00:28:23] Like they have the old CRM coming up and the bolt is obviously on a whole platform at this point with the older powertrain. And so we knew that it wasn’t going to be updated with the new version, but if you look so we’re thinking, all right, well, when are they gonna update it with the old cm? Then I went in all by Brett with that, because if you look.

[00:28:44] Everything that’s going on. I mean, it’s, it’s a mid cycle update for the Chevy bolt, TV, and wall, and the launch for the UV, but it’s very, very close vehicle, really. So probably going to run for another four years like that. And and during those four years, GM is mostly going to release more expensive vehicle with the Ultium platform.

[00:29:04] I mean, the armor heavy. For like starts 120 and doesn’t go down to 180 for like three years or something. The Tad’s lack w lyric and the other one that has a weird name and I forget and the, all those cars. Sell a stick are, are more are going to be more expensive. And it’s gonna take a while for GM to come down in price with the LCM, like any new technology, really.

[00:29:27] And so, so by the time that the bolt’s going to be due for a refresh or something I think, I think GM’s going to introduce the OCM through it, or it might be like a refresh or they might do a whole. They might strap the whole bowl, TV all together and just launch a different vehicle in the same segment or something.

[00:29:47] Seth Weintraub: I hope they keep it. It would be nice. I think they could go really low end cause you know, the F the voltage, the LTMS come in like 50 kilowatt or a hundred kilowatt or 150 kilowatt, I think they could do a really low end 50 kilowatt, maybe, you know, 20 something thousand dollar bull out with the Altium, but, you know, quicker charging and some other nice stuff.

[00:30:06] Fred Lambert: Maybe yeah, maybe not 20, but 25 or something like that. That would still make sense. Like I like a nice car. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right. The not so good news, a Mercedes Benz can sell the lunch of the QC that gets you the altogether in the U S this week. So if you remember, the car has been around for a while now 2010 of 2019, really?

[00:30:31] It was launched then we both drove one, right? Yeah. Yeah. I went all the way to Norway to, to like the, normally the European automakers. They don’t invite us to go drive their car in Europe unless they plan to launch it in the U S and the plan back then, once you launch it in the U S in 2020 but then early in 2020, they decided to push it to 2021.

[00:30:50] We are now in 2021 and The automaker confirm in the interview with Ulta blog that the following I’m quoting following a comprehensive review of market developments, they QC will not be offered in the U S for now. So they might change, but for now it’s, it’s it’s canceled. So they don’t have plans to do it right now.

[00:31:10] So unless some of those market developments that they didn’t specify what they are change then then they won’t launch. So. I mean, I, I th I think it’s quite obvious what’s happening here. It’s the QC is sort of turning into a compliance car, which that’s not a bad word. Like, don’t use it. Hey, you know?

[00:31:29]But I mean, it’s, it’s just, it, it’s not, the volume is just not there. Like, if it was, it wouldn’t be a compliance car. If they had the volume, if they had the volume, they would ship it to the U S and try to surf for the U S. For sure. Like ADI, ADI has a higher volume where they each run like th th this would be a very competent equal with the heart of each one, but How do you invest in more in the higher volume production?

[00:31:50] And that’s how allows them to sell a lot of them in Europe. Most of them are sold in Europe for sure, but they have enough volume that they send some to the U S they don’t sell that much in the U S with silver. So some decent selves, a Mercedes is not there yet. They don’t produce the vehicle and high enough.

[00:32:04]Capacity. So the, the sell it where it counts and for them to council a lot more in Europe because of the regulation there that forces them to have a higher mix of EVs and their fleets to lower their overall fleet emissions. So, yeah, we’re not getting the QC, but it did confirm that the, they will bring the EQs this year to the U S so that’s the sedan.

[00:32:26] Yeah. I mean, it’s kinda weird. Like it shows you like, technically the SUV sells better in the us than, than a sedan. So why would you bring a sedan? The reason is that they are making it in a higher volume than they’re going to be making another thing in the higher volume. It’s a bigger vehicle program for them.

[00:32:43] Of course, though, the Mercedes is. Has an expertise in Sudan. I feel I did like the, they do have like the GLC and everything, great cars and whatnot, but I think like the, the S class it’s kind of iconic and even really the C-Class do so the EQs is obviously going to be as class competitor. So,

[00:33:00] Seth Weintraub: yeah, but I mean, we, we we both drove the QC and we, I, I don’t know about you, but I thought it was a really nice ride.

[00:33:08] Yeah, it was a great car for sure to be. So, you know, there’s a lot of people saying, well, Mercedes isn’t competitive and, you know, with, with like Teslas in the U S and I do get that a little bit. Cause the mileage is so low comparatively, but I, you know, I also think like if they really wanted to sell here, they would, they would sell pretty good.

[00:33:29] Fred Lambert: I mean, just, just like we talk about the bowl. I mean, there there’s some limitation that has longer range for sure. But with the charging, everything, it doesn’t make it great for a road trips. I would argue that QC is probably not great for a road trip, Cedar, but I mean, if you’re for a, for an around town SUV to get your kids to soccer and whatnot, like it’s, it’s, it would be a great car.

[00:33:50] And if you’re a Mercedes owner already. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s the easiest transition ever for, from a Mercedes SUV to the QC, because it’s very much a Mercedes car. Like they didn’t cut any corners on that front and everything. And you get everything you’d expect in an SUV. It’s just, and then Mercedes SUV is just electric.

[00:34:09] Yeah. All right. So last week we talked about, or two weeks ago, whenever when the Ford announced that they’re doubling their electric vehicle investment to two. $22 billion through 2025. We noted that it’s nice and everything, but you didn’t, they didn’t S didn’t release anything concrete. What are you going to do with that money?

[00:34:30] Like you just said, double the inventor. $22 billion is going to be great this way. Give Elisa more concrete details, or at least for one of those $22 billion. One of those is, or is going to go to transform their their factory in cologne, cologne, Germany. So the, the, they already have a factory there, but they’re going to reinvent it all to become an electric vehicle factory, bringing their first high volume EMV to market in Europe passenger car in 2023.

[00:35:02] So they didn’t really reveal which one is going to be. A lot of people are assuming it’s going to be the one with the MEB platform that they are supposed to have in partnership with VW. But it’s going to be built right down. So that’s not, that’s not clear did any confirm that there was the immediate in the press release.

[00:35:18]But, and they also said that there a second vehicle is being considered for, to be built at the location of technology vehicles. So,

[00:35:25] Seth Weintraub: yeah, I think Autocar a UK based website said something about a smaller Mustang, like vehicle that was based on the MEB platform which would make a lot of sense, like.

[00:35:36] You know, there’s already a, we already know Ford in Europe is kind of in Germany, is going to be building a lot of MEB platform vehicles. So this, this is probably the you know, it’s meant for that.

[00:35:51] Fred Lambert: Oh, yeah. There’s also a release some goals that term of electrification shouldn’t mention them real quick. They said that by mid 20, 26, a hundred percent of Ford’s passenger vehicle range will be zero-emission capable electric or plug-in hybrid. So the way I interpret that is that for every model that they sell, they’re going to have an all electric or plug-in version.

[00:36:15]Which it’s never, I’m never impressed by that those kinds of announcements. Like, just to me, it sounds like an ionic, like where you have like the, the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid and which, which has never high deal. But anyway more significantly they did say that we’ll be completely all electric by 2030.

[00:36:31] So that that’s more exciting to me, for sure. For is also big in Europe, but also in the U S but in Europe they have a big commercial division. And they said that they will be zero emission capable, all electric drink again, or plug-in hybrid by 2024 across the commercial lineup. And the expect that two thirds of their cells will be all electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030 for the commercial side of the, or their business.

[00:36:59] So, I mean, not, not bad those are, those are good goals to have, I think in Europe I would like for, to have similar goals in the U S but if those are their goals in Europe, I would expect that it’s not coming close to that in the us. And it should be. Yeah. All right. If you have any questions, put them in the comments right now, we’re going to get to them in a second.

[00:37:17] We just have one more news item to discuss here and That’s that’s an interesting one here, like with the pack deals these days that are happening in the ed. Well, not a lot of them are getting very excited. Some of them are fine. Some others I’m like, yeah, we can just opportunistic that this one is not opportunistic, but it’s one, that’s more exciting to me for, for, for a few personal reasons, of course, because there are close to here.

[00:37:40] Like there they are located in Quebec, but I’ve been following Taiga fruitful for a long time. Tested their first prototype of their electric snowmobile back in 2018, I was really impressed by it and they improve on it a lot since, and now they’re going public with a lot of money, so we should expect them to reach production volume production a lot easier with that without backup.

[00:38:04]So they’re doing the reverse merger like everybody’s doing right now. They’re doing it with the can I core Genuity growth through founds? So that’s trading on the Toronto exchange and the Neo exchange. I’m not sure is that, do you know that the new exchange is that for the U S people that they, so they could invest two in us dollars?

[00:38:20] I’m not

[00:38:21] Seth Weintraub: familiar. I’ve heard the name. I just don’t

[00:38:22] Fred Lambert: know what it is. Yeah. Yeah, they’re giving a hundred million dollars through the deal and they’re going to be valued at 500 million, which is just significant for a company that’s just starting now deliveries of their snowmobiles. But yeah, I’m excited to, I like the team, they, they kind of spun out of the, of the McGill university engineering program and the, the sun opportunity to electrify all power sports release, starting with a snowmobile, which is a very mission producing vehicle really.

[00:38:49] And But the, the figure, if you develop a power train, a good at it, you powertrain rubbish. And that first snowmobile and everything, you can leverage that and produce electric watercraft and eventually ATVs and, and all, all power sport vehicles. So that’s what they want to do. And they’re going public too to make that happen.

[00:39:07] So I chew a few bucks there away. If you want to do the same, we are not advisor financial advisor. You can do your own due diligence and everything. But I think, I think it’s an interesting project and yeah, I can’t wait to get on one of those general fund reviews, right? Yeah. I mean, as was jet skis, it’s not a jet ski and selfishly a brand, but everybody calls them.

[00:39:28] Jet-skis, it’s a personal watercraft, right? Yeah, they, they do look fun and I mean, they they’re getting some great performance out of them. Like I don’t like the snowmobile world is kind of a crazy one too. Like there’s some people here that are just snowmobile nuts, like the, the leave and breeds snowmobiles.

[00:39:43] I never enjoyed it that much because of the sound. They have to be honest with you. The sound, the vibration is also pretty crazy, but the sound always killed me. Like you’re, I mean, Your nature. I just went skiing through like in multimedia and my first time skiing in years, I’m like, this is beautiful.

[00:40:01] Like, wow. And then rural, crazy snowmobile rides by you. And like what? Like, it just, it kills like the moment in nature and everything and those ones. I mean, there’s still a sound, especially if you. Crank them up a lot, because they are very high performance is zero to a hundred kilometers an hour in 2.9 seconds.

[00:40:19] And Erik motor does have a winding sound, but if you’re just cruising and everything, and this is, this is very, very fun to use. So it’s like it’s the, the mission of the company is really to electrify power sports by. Bringing performance that you vehicles that have better performance than their gasoline powered counterparts.

[00:40:43] So it makes sense to, to, to to, to buy DHE version because they offer a higher performance. And at the same time, by doing that, you, you remove the emissions and the sounds from that power sport that enables you to enjoy it more and be one with nature. If you will. Yeah, exciting stuff. All right.

[00:41:01] So if you have any questions, let’s, let’s dive in right now.

[00:41:05] Seth Weintraub: All right. First question from the Jose we were talking about the Greenville has really hope Tesla doesn’t pump up the prices. Once the Greenville passes and $7,000 tax credit is up for grabs. That’s

[00:41:16]Fred Lambert: That would look bad. It would look crazy bad, but at the same time, when, when the credit went away, they did reduce the price.

[00:41:24] They hit the bullet there in the U S they reduced the price of their vehicles. So, I mean, I guess it goes both ways. But I doubt it, especially with now introducing that new, lower price with with the green bill being coming at very least like we, we know it exists. We think it’s coming. So I don’t think that’s going to happen versus

[00:41:45] Seth Weintraub: yeah, I hope not.

[00:41:47] Alright. Isaac Luttrell, they should put retroactive to January 1st in the bill draft bills. So people will keep buying. Isn’t that the point to drive sales? Great point there. Yeah.

[00:41:57] Fred Lambert: I completely agree with that, but again, I’ll certainly extends for tax credit with every call deliver in the tax year and everything, but I don’t know.

[00:42:05] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. He has a corollary to that big three auto don’t want it retroactive. I have. I big three. What is big three anymore?

[00:42:12] Fred Lambert: Yeah, this is bigger than all bakeries.

[00:42:16] Seth Weintraub: So I think maybe Ford doesn’t want that, but big three auto doesn’t want it retroactive because you can’t produce some would lose out to Tesla.

[00:42:24] Okay. Yeah,

[00:42:24] Fred Lambert: for sure. Forwarding Chrysler and not completely on the, the, or the ones that are more certain vintage. Buy it right now. Yeah. The same time companies like, Aw, these two they’ve taken advantage of that right now. Like, okay.

[00:42:37] Seth Weintraub: All right, Wayne. Oh, says the NTSB has regulations on steering wheels and only custom cars are allowed to have non-conforming steering wheels.

[00:42:44] I’ve heard some of that, but

[00:42:47] Fred Lambert: apparently ambiguous. Yeah. Tesla is very confident that the butterfly will w w we be allowed to, so,

[00:42:55] Seth Weintraub: all right. This is something we didn’t talk about. Can you guys comment on Tesla, lease pricing for three and why I heard it’s down $40 a month, or so, did we check that out?

[00:43:05] Fred Lambert: Yeah, I did. I did look at the pricing that they were updated in, in line with the w with when, when you sit down by $40 and that down. To get not down to but yeah, the, the, the, they were, they were updated in line with with the price decrease for the, if you buy the car, like in the purchase price.

[00:43:24]And yet they do make a lot of sense. And those are going to also be affected by the tax refund, the dust come in, though, because. If the car is leased and the automaker is allowed to take the, the, the tax credit there. So and apply that to, to the pricing of the, of the car over, over the least to the least price.

[00:43:44]So that reduced the price. It, I mean, I remember when when Chevy’s still had access to the tax credit that both TV and like $142 a month. We lease at one point. So with the $37,000 price down the mall three, and if it goes get the 7,000 and the lease price in California would go will be pretty cheap.

[00:44:07] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. All right. Lou, so sailor says the old central and CX had a strange blinker knob to that’s in reference to the new model S and X. Right. Blinker situation.

[00:44:18] Fred Lambert: I don’t know what that looks like. A knob and knob for a blinker.

[00:44:23] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. For me, it’s like, you know, that it has to be much better than the current situation for it to be worth changing because everybody drives normal cars or all the time.

[00:44:35] So I hope it’s a lot

[00:44:37] Fred Lambert: better. Well, the idea is like on the highway, you’re using the power that the pod would pull the blinker by itself. Right. And then if you’re driving, normally you have both hands on the steering wheel, you and your Tom’s are going to be where to blinkers are anyway. So you just, boop, boop, boop, boop.

[00:44:54] Seth Weintraub: So you have a Deepak. All right. Chain of Sullivan says, have you seen the new FreeWire 120 kilowatt DC charge point that was installed in the UK last week with 160 kilowatt hours onboard battery looks really interesting and only requires 28. Kilowatt grid connection.

[00:45:13]Fred Lambert: I’m aware of the three wires, a combination of battery and fast charging.

[00:45:17] I didn’t know about a specific one installed in the UK, but yeah, I mean, a lot of, a lot of charging companies are looking into that now just due to have battery capacity too. Cause then you, you, you completely avoid so to speak charges that are

[00:45:31] Seth Weintraub: yeah. Jacks up the price a little bit though. And obviously like if somebody’s charging for, you know, that there’s like a lineup of people willing to charge that 120 or 160 kilowatt hours doesn’t show disappearing.

[00:45:42] Yeah. All right. Green gold says Chevy. Evie looks pretty nice for 33 K

[00:45:48] Fred Lambert: yeah. I’m not a big fan of the front end to be honest. But other than that, I think, yeah, it’s a big improvement.

[00:45:55] Seth Weintraub: All right. What did I pass up here? Do you think Tesla will make a more affordable LFP Powerwall?

[00:46:02] Fred Lambert: Good question. If it can get a lot of LFP batteries, maybe.

[00:46:07] I mean, a, I w Sonnen that use Lyft, I think, is that right? I think siren did use it FTE at some point, at least, or something close to that chemistry yet, but. Yeah. I mean if you could make sense for it, for, for wall. But I mean, anything you can do to not just, I mean, at this point they don’t even need to make it more equitable.

[00:46:28] They just need to make more because people will buy that, that price. Of course, if they make more than they can make it more affordable too. So that’s had a bonus. Yeah.

[00:46:38] Seth Weintraub: All right, Brian says you need a full circle wheel for handling in case of emergencies. We can talk about that a little bit.

[00:46:45]Fred Lambert: Not if you change the turning radius that you don’t have to go all the way down, you just make it so that if you turn just that much on the wheel, well, it turns that much in a car and

[00:46:54] Seth Weintraub: whatnot, and yeah, so we were talking about steering by wire at that point, which I think we saw previously Tesla had some like patents

[00:47:02] Fred Lambert: or something like that.

[00:47:03] Yeah, I did. They’ve been working on that, but we didn’t get, I think everyone assumes that that’s in the mall ass right now.

[00:47:08]Seth Weintraub: So back to we were talking about Texas being out of power. The culprit is Arthur K lode says the culprit is the fossil based death grip on Texas politicians, which. It seems pretty obvious to be true.

[00:47:21] I mean, even with Tesla making huge investments in Texas, they seem to still think that oil

[00:47:27] Fred Lambert: and gas, I mean, I was shocked by the amount of people that were carbon dioxide poisoning. Accent. Yeah. Camera on the left side. Sorry. I’m poisoning. I was like that like hundreds and hundreds of cases happened since it was freezing and like, and Jamie had a good point where I was like, eh, I mean, that, that doesn’t have to be your first thought, like let’s.

[00:47:51] Start the car in the garage that makes no, first of all, everyone should know that you shouldn’t do that. Like that’s start with, but also that’s even, even if you could, let’s say it shouldn’t be a first stop. Like just put some blankets, just put more, more close on it and like keep warm. But Jimmy was like, it’s Texas.

[00:48:08] Your first thought is like, let’s burn some fossil fuel.

[00:48:12] Seth Weintraub: Yeah, it’s funny. You know I’m in Vermont we snowboard all day, like literally out in zero degree weather all day long and don’t even like, You

[00:48:20] Fred Lambert: know, like it’s snowboarding, you’re like you’re doing exercise and everything like it’s warm through, but I mean, even then he can, it can be minus 10.

[00:48:29] And of course I’m, I’m better equipped than most people in Texas, but I mean, it gets, gets cold through in Texas. Like people have sweaters, they have blankets and whatnot. Like you can keep yourself warm. If you need to go start the car in the garage. Actually, it’s not, it’s not like, Oh, the report, it cannot afford blankets.

[00:48:47] You have a garage, you have a garage. You can afford blade kits. Yeah. It’s kind of rough. I know I have a garage and I have blankets. All

[00:48:57] Seth Weintraub: right, Wayne. Oh, says the government can’t tax power. You can make stores. So there’s no incentive for government to promote it. They can tax, building it. They can tax. I mean, electricity.

[00:49:08] They can.

[00:49:10] Fred Lambert: So power is not tax it’s tax for

[00:49:13] Seth Weintraub: sure. But you’re saying you can’t tax solar power that you generate on your roof and bring into your house.

[00:49:19] Fred Lambert: I mean, the, the, you, you, you could tax the, the power at the panels and everything that’s already done really well, though. There’s the ITC that controls that, but still, yeah.

[00:49:31] Seth Weintraub: All right. Let’s move on. Chain of Sullivan. When you are heating your home with a heat pump, it will eat into the battery storage pretty quickly pulling between two to four kilowatts every hour.

[00:49:46] Yeah. I mean, heat pumps actually way, way more efficient than a resistive heating, which I think probably most people in Texas had, which is probably one of the big problems with the grid, which is like, it’s not. They didn’t really expect everybody to have to deal with like below zero degree weather with their electric heaters like Nana LOL, you could argue that any new car model coming out in 2022 should be adopting 800 volt batteries.

[00:50:15] Thoughts?

[00:50:15]Fred Lambert: Depends on the pricing, I guess like right now what we’re seeing is like every 800 volt vehicle is a lot more expensive. Like Tiken the e-tron GT and the more pneumo S

[00:50:29] Seth Weintraub: yeah. The first inexpensive ones are Hyundai’s. The ionic line is a 800 volt. I think

[00:50:37] Fred Lambert: the new ionic one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we don’t hold the prize for that just yet.

[00:50:42] Right, but we assume that it’s not going to be okay.

[00:50:44] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, the idea with 800 volt is it’s half. You only need half the amperage, which means you need much smaller wires and you could theoretically charge it much faster. And those all seem like good things to do, but it’s more expensive to have a higher voltage systems.

[00:51:01] All right. Did you have the opportunity to check the website and roads? Oh yeah, we didn’t do that. Did you do that? I didn’t do that. We didn’t do our homework.

[00:51:08] Fred Lambert: Sorry. Right.

[00:51:12] Seth Weintraub: Tesla is smart. Says Brent. They are basically the VW of the 1930 sevens. If he can get every American driving one, he will indeed be a genius.

[00:51:21] All right.

[00:51:26] Moving on Justin Moore. When do you think there will be a largest electric SUV on the market other than the model X. Well, the

[00:51:33] Fred Lambert: Caribbean, Caribbean, that’s the new

[00:51:35] Seth Weintraub: Caribbean. Yeah. It’s big. And also a VW has got the ID.

[00:51:39] Fred Lambert: What is it? Six. The six is pretty big too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s more of a Ford Explorer on the pilot competitor, I guess.

[00:51:46] Cause the ribbon is a little bit more expensive than that though. The ribbon will get the 7,500 tax credit if it’s still there or the 7,000, if it’s by them, but maybe

[00:51:57] Seth Weintraub: it’s got a third row,

[00:51:58] Fred Lambert: right. Yep. Can get it through the whole thing on the, yeah. What do

[00:52:04] Seth Weintraub: you think about getting a ribbon? Can I, can I maybe get that?

[00:52:08]

[00:52:08] Fred Lambert: Yeah, you were thinking like a different change. It like it, thank you. You can make some more sense to the youth to have the electric pickup for now. I can, I can wait. No, I’m not going to get the pickles, a big, big truck. Yeah, we were just still on my reservation

[00:52:25] Seth Weintraub: and I would think we need the big wheels Hills in Vermont.

[00:52:28] All right. Pre-runner want to be says, do you think with the Sr plus price guide Sr model three buyers could upgrade to an Sr plus for less.

[00:52:38] Fred Lambert: I don’t think the SRE exists. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:43] Seth Weintraub: It was kind of phased out at the end of

[00:52:44] Fred Lambert: last year. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think like, what we’ve been hearing is like, you can’t really like get it and even, even if you could, like, it was $35,000, but the cut a bunch of things.

[00:52:55] And now at 37,000 or to like the things that you get for those $2,000 was like no-brainer. Yeah. So.

[00:53:03]Seth Weintraub: What do we think of spark charge? Should Josh Aviv meet Joe Biden and produce millions of portable level three, Evie charters that fit in your trunk?

[00:53:12] Fred Lambert: I don’t, I don’t get that, that much, this little thing like this portable I, a spark charge makes sense for me for like triple A’s and, and, and things like that.

[00:53:20] Like that, that makes a lot of sense. Like all triple A’s vehicles should have a spark charge or the equivalent of it and everything. But like, I only get like, people, you have a big battery and electric car is like, Oh, let’s have some battery and efficiently the trunk so that they can charge it and like, stop, like.

[00:53:39] No. If, if Biden needs to do anything, it’s more charger everywhere. Like you can get that. You don’t have to carry the battery with you to get there. He is making a, I don’t like that logic that people have. Like the only thing that makes sense, it’s like, you’re, you’re going to desert, for example, like you really need to go.

[00:53:57] Through it, do you really need more batteries? I’ll just put a spark charge in your back, the back of your truck and the echoes, but you’re going to be less efficient doing that than just stopping at a charging station. So if you can start a subluxation, it’s always a better solution. Yeah.

[00:54:11] Seth Weintraub: All right. In regard to LFP Powerwalls K star uses cattle LFPs

[00:54:18] Fred Lambert: lowercase store is

[00:54:20] Seth Weintraub: I heard it.

[00:54:20] I

[00:54:21] Fred Lambert: can’t remember where I was like a rapper or something.

[00:54:25] Seth Weintraub: I think you’re thinking a Worldstar. Alright. No, I

[00:54:27] Fred Lambert: mean, I know what the word is, but like, can you start, could be a rapper on WellStar.

[00:54:32]Seth Weintraub: Taylor’s Zeller Newman says will be interesting to see if aging vehicle programs, both leave ivory, et cetera, will continue to chase the higher range charging targets or start to lower MSRP and led future programs.

[00:54:44] Push on spec wise.

[00:54:47] Fred Lambert: They don’t need a ladder. I think.

[00:54:49] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. I mean, Th those cars, the in particular belief. I just

[00:54:54] Fred Lambert: think that, well, actually it’s pretty much dead. I think. Yeah. The, the, the leaf at the, I think it’s going to go the, the second way lower prices and the REO and future Vico from Nissan’s got takeover and GM, it’s pretty obvious that’s what’s happening with that old cm and whatnot.

[00:55:11] Yeah, we talked

[00:55:12] Seth Weintraub: about that before a little bit. The new bolt is certainly less exciting, but it is cool to finally see the price start to take down a touch. I mean, if you’ve been following the boat we have a page on electric about the prices they’ve been cutting the price of bolt for over a year now.

[00:55:25] Pretty pretty ever since the, the tax rebate disappeared, Chevy Chevy has been getting it down to around 30,000 anyway, so.

[00:55:32]Fred Lambert: It’s going to be interesting to see the price now of the old or the 20, 21, both like, cause it’s still going, are they still producing it? Or even if they’re not like whatever, then three is yeah.

[00:55:44] If you can

[00:55:45] Seth Weintraub: get one of those, they’re going to be quite inexpensive.

[00:55:48] Fred Lambert: Yeah. Now you have a new one. Yeah. The new one that is not only better in a bunch of ways. It’s also got cheaper at the MSRP. So. The MSRP or the other one. I mean, even the brand new one’s going to have to go down.

[00:56:03] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. There’s going to be some very inexpensive old

[00:56:06] Fred Lambert: site there.

[00:56:07] Oh yeah. 20,000 and things like that.

[00:56:09]Seth Weintraub: The automakers should be pushing for solid state batteries,

[00:56:14] Fred Lambert: for sure.

[00:56:15] Seth Weintraub: For sure. Toyota electric Toyota. Alright. Electric blankets with blue lady power storage would have helped a lot in Texas. Well, You know, if you have a battery powered electric blanket, congratulations.

[00:56:30] You’re not going to freeze to death. Electric blankets use very little energy overall. That’s a good point. You know, if you’re talking about keeping yourself warm, probably the most efficient way to do it, electrically is with an electric blanket, I guess if maybe you live in Texas and worried about the next storm, that might be a good investment.

[00:56:47] Fred Lambert: Hmm. I’ll look into those weighted blankets. Love them. That’s what I use. Yeah. Okay.

[00:56:53]Seth Weintraub: Tommy says the new model S is 800 volts question. Do we need that? I think so.

[00:56:58] Fred Lambert: No. Is it? I think so. Or at least the plaid version.

[00:57:03] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. The plaid version. I think we got yeah. And, and frankly Tesla will move at, around its line in the years ahead.

[00:57:10]Interesting to see Volvo Eby trucks becoming very normal in Norway, as we’ve seen in Tessa, Bjorn’s recent video with four trucks charging at ABB, 150 kilowatt high power chargers. I did see that

[00:57:22] Fred Lambert: all that is though, but

[00:57:23] Seth Weintraub: yeah, that’s just one, one instance in one place in Norway. Yeah.

[00:57:28] Fred Lambert: I’d like to know how many of them were delivered in Nori period at all?

[00:57:31] I don’t think it’s a very high number, but yeah, the Volvo is definitely the leader or leader of the middle on that electrification of, of a mid-sized trucks, commercial trucks.

[00:57:41] Seth Weintraub: Yeah. And our last comment is bolt has horrible styling. I disagree. I was a boat owner for three years. I loved that car. I I’m thinking about getting another one.

[00:57:52] Was crazy. It was a good time.

[00:57:55] Fred Lambert: All right, we’re going to end it on that. Thanks everyone for listening or watching on YouTube, Facebook, the weather, wherever you’re watching on your podcast app, we appreciate you and I’m going to see you. Same place, same time next week.

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