Electrek Podcast

Podcast: Tesla Roadster, Toyota EVs, new federal tax credit, and more

Fred Lambert | Feb 12 2021 - 3:49 pm PT

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including more Tesla Roadster information, Toyota bringing EVs to the US, a new federal tax credit, 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

Fred: And we are lively. These are gentlemen for a new episode of the electric podcast. I am Fred Lambert, your hosts, and as usual I’m joined by set Winthrop today. Set

[00:00:09] Seth: I’m good.

[00:00:10]Fred: All right, let’s jump into this. We have a, quite a few interesting news to discuss this week, and we’re going to start with one.

[00:00:15] That’s gonna, it’s gonna affect a lot of people that are planning to buy an electric car in the U S sometime this year or even in the next few years. The The long anticipated reform of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles is, is pretty close to happening. So it was officially submitted to the house of representative in Washington.

[00:00:40]And it’s called, it’s called the green act. And green is an acronym for growing renewable energy and efficiency. Now. Now. Cool. All right. There’s, there’s a bunch of different things to unpack in there. There’s it’s a, it, it, it, it affects the ITC for solar. It brings it back to 30% and extends it until 20 26.

[00:01:02] But of course, the thing that we were more morals interested in is how does it affect the federal tax credit for electric vehicles? Because that’s what needed to be reformed specifically, because, I mean, it was really unfair to a Tesla and in GM, right? Warren now don’t watch buyers of this NGM don’t have access to it.

[00:01:20] And and sorry, I don’t, I’m going to share the screen here. Sure. Got to do that thing. Quick sharing screen. Boom, we’re on. Yeah. So Tesla and GM hit the threshold for the, the $200,000 to 200,000 deliveries in the U S and after that, they, they still managed to get more tasks rather than 200,000.

[00:01:44] Then there’s a phase out period that lasts more than a year, really. But now it’s over for both automakers and basically the situation now is you have. Automakers that have EVs in the market that they’re more competitive. Price-wise. Because their buyers have access to the tax credit. And this learned GM buyers don’t even though for the only reason that they were sooner to market with higher volume of EVs.

[00:02:09] So it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t encourage automakers to, to produce the vehicles. There are a bunch of different things were suggested over the last few years. If you’ve been following this, the legislation that was proposed around that some people were pushing for. Let’s just remove the cap altogether and.

[00:02:26] Put a timeline on it. Instead, for example, like seven $7,500 now, and by 2023, it goes down to six and then by 2025 goes down to five. And so on you phase that out until all electric vehicles or competitive with Fossil fuel powered vehicles. But somehow that didn’t go, that it was isn’t the solution that has been brought forward this time, especially not with this green accurate, instead of what they’re proposing is a new cap of 600,000 deliveries, so significant increase But the 200,000 deliveries that happened before are still accounted for.

[00:03:04] So it’s really 400,000 new potential deliveries that can apply. And I’m at the new count on those 400,000 Appen when the new law is adopted. So this, this is great. Anything also also the change, the, the, the, the change, the actual amount. It’s not 7,500 now. It’s it’s 7,000 pretty, pretty close. But in, in, in the if you read the actual a document here, they do say that the, the new cap is adopted.

[00:03:33] The date of enactment are, so those sole on the date of enactment, the student to determine when the 600 officials is reached between the 200,000 and the 600, the 600,000. So. That’s all they’re going to account for which it’s kind of a problem because normally with tax credit, you would think is just if you took delivery in that tax year.

[00:03:56]But not now, we we’re going to kind of have to wait for this thing to actually be enacted. And that, that means that could, that could create some problem for Tesla in, in GM. For selling cars in between now and when it’s going to be enacted, because I think a lot of the people, including herself were assuming that that thing is going to pass.

[00:04:15] I don’t know. What, what do you think Seth

[00:04:17] Seth: yeah. W you know, with the Democrats in all houses and the presidency, you would think so, although some of those tiebreaker type Democrats, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, May not be so easy to convince. So it’s not a done deal, but it seems like something will, will come out of this.

[00:04:37]As for the legislation, it doesn’t really make sense. I mean, it doesn’t make a ton of sense. Like, you know, I never thought that the first one made a lot of sense. You know, we’ve been saying for you, a carbon tax is really the best way to do it. Like capitalism takeover. We’re not accounting for the pollution that goes into the air.

[00:04:57]If we accounted for that, everything would be fine. So, you know, this is just like kind of another like weird hack bandaid kind of thing. I mean, it, it is obviously not fair to Tesla and GM and soon Nissan, I guess that they have to you know, they, they may the early investments in EVs and now

[00:05:23] Now th the competitors who kind of can, you know, leverage the battery technology that came out of, you know, Tesla and GM’s early investments, you know, at LG or something those they can take advantage of that. And so LG packs in their cars and they, they get a $7,500 taxpayer GMs.

[00:05:41] Fred: That’s a good point.

[00:05:42] And then see like that, like Companies like a Hyundai or whatever, like , they still benefit from like the partnership with LG and

[00:05:54] innovation. But I mean the same principle applies.

[00:05:57] Seth: Right? So, I mean, there’s a lot of things that kind of make it unfair. I mean, it should be something across the board. And then of course, like people are going to be upset that like you can buy Teslas plaid model S. And get a $7,000 rebate on $120,000 car.

[00:06:13] Like nobody who, who is going to buy $120,000 car. It needs a $7,000 rebate.

[00:06:19] Fred: Yeah, I would have thought that they would have yeah. W w w if you’re updating the program, might as well introduce a cap like that, that, that one I have to admit that’s a bit, it’s a bit tricky. Like, yeah. I like to see those discount on, on cheaper vehicle, like the bowl, like the model three and everything, but if you’re going for a plan or as you probably can afford it, you don’t need to, you don’t need the refund.

[00:06:41] Seth: Interesting. So there was a little part in that the bill. The, I got this from the Mike Thompson house.gov site. There’s a part of it, section four Oh two on page, end of page four of it for the use bars used cars, right? Yeah. And in that one buyers with up to $30,000 or $60,000 for married couples filed jointly in adjusted gross income can claim the full amount of the credit, the credit.

[00:07:04] So that one is based on. Or that bit is based on the income of the people earning it. And that, that is for the, the EVs should not exceed the price of 25,000. So that’s going to be probably not many Teslas there. You know, some old

[00:07:24] ones, perhaps.

[00:07:25] Fred: So they, they, they were thinking about it at least. Cause they did it for the, for the use, the car rebates.

[00:07:30] So why not do it for the new one? I mean, I do understand, like the idea is just to try to convince someone that is looking for a new car, a, you want to incentivize them to choose an electric one over a gasoline one. So that that’s the goal. So that’s the goal at. Any, any where on the market? W whether it’s luxury or not, but here’s the thing in the higher end of the market.

[00:07:56] Now, it’s not, it’s custom, petitive the all electric version. Like, if you’re looking for something like the plaid model S, there’s nothing like it. Gasoline powered. Like there’s nothing that gets the kind of performance that that car gets. So if you, if you’re looking for that kind of performance, you got to go with them all.

[00:08:13] So being incentivized to get it, it doesn’t make it

[00:08:19] Seth: right. So you know, this is probably going to get, you know, changed a bit before it finally gets signed and put into law. You know, hopefully it does. But you know, maybe it’s more focused on getting a lower cost cars out there.

[00:08:38] Fred: Oh yeah. I mean also.

[00:08:41] Most of the incentive is going to go through those. I mean, it just, you just look at the production volume, then that’s ready and that that’s where the cars are going. So, so it’s not that big of a problem either, but it’s, it’s certainly gonna be an attack vector for whenever this, this bill is debated and I’m sure they’re going to use that.

[00:09:01] Seth: Rena. We know the, that the line already, it’s going to be like, Oh, we’re supporting tax breaks for billionaires that are buying Teslas, you know, like that’s we th it’s already, it’s already been done. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:09:14] Fred: we we’ve heard it before, but but ultimately it’s going to be, it’s going to be positive for X everything and the vehicle adoption in the U S there’s no doubt about it, especially with bunch of other vehicles coming to market right now that are on the lower hand of the market.

[00:09:27] $7,000 difference on a 30, $40,000 car. Makes it be a much bigger difference than on a 60, $70,000 car should that that’s going to be a big deal. Whether people are saying that 400,000 like a cap, again, this is not ideal, especially not for Tesla with the kind of volume they’re doing right now. Like this is, this could literally just last a year for Tesla potentially.

[00:09:48]I’m not, I’m not sure. Sure. If that’s the case, especially with. Like it’s 400,000 deliveries in the us. And I mean, with the mall, why more, three production capacity right now, Fremont, it could, it could be fairly quick. But I don’t know, like a w w we’re going to have to see also there’s a thing There’s a, there’s a phase out period.

[00:10:07] Again, it’s not, it’s not as generous or a phase out period. So what they say here is that the prevision replays, the current for his up period with a phrase up here that incident begins during the second quarter after this, the, the, the instead begins during the second calendar quarter after Sasha and Charles.

[00:10:25] And so you have basically two quarters. After you hit the 600,000 deliveries or of still having the full, so, so if you have a high production rate at that point, you can still take advantage of that. $7,000 a lot. I mean, desolate and could pronounce she’s still like have. 200, $300,000, 300,000 more deliveries in the 600,000.

[00:10:50] It could, it could reach to close to a million, really a total. So so it’s still, it’s still very the vintages. So and with the timing of it too, w what’s gonna be interesting is that it’s going to open up the tax credit, maybe to cyber truck buyers at this point. Like, Oh yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, depending on when this is enacted and if it is exactly like that, which again, we’ve said that it’s not necessarily the case, but you, you gave it, you gave it like, let’s say a year for this, that hit the front hundred thousand.

[00:11:18] So that, that puts you somewhere in 2022. And then you still have six months of, of that $7,000 access. So. I mean, I don’t think so. That puts you like in second half, maybe of 20, 22. I don’t know. I could kind of volume production tests, like an eight on this laboratory at this point, but still, and the higher production capacity.

[00:11:38] Do you have for all the vehicle programs that you all going to get at a big boost from

[00:11:42] it? Yeah. Maybe even the Roadster will get it. Yeah. A little discount.

[00:11:47] Okay. Yeah, baby, potentially though, again, that’s the one that’s going to go well with people with other people. If you get access to that.

[00:11:55] Seth: Yeah, but I think the sh the story in the short term is going to be all right.

[00:11:58] So now this is being talked about when we think it’s pretty likely to happen, but between now, and when it happens, like, is Tesla going to really, or Tesla and GM and whatever, whoever else are they gonna, are there going to be a lot of people just waiting for that to drop and, you know, our customers Number’s going to go way down in the U

[00:12:17] Fred: S I mean, doesn’t make much sense to, to, until you have some clarity over, over that happening.

[00:12:23] I mean, I wouldn’t buy one personally, like right. $7,000. $7,000. Yeah. And for people who say, Oh, you’re just like a subsidy leech and you’re trying to get us us. I mean, no if, if you understand the meaning of that, of that incentive, that’s incentive is there because there’s a cost that is not accounted for when you buy a gasoline vehicle that you burned, if that fuel we, we, you, you just started with that said that the carbon tax will, will make us more.

[00:12:48] We’ll make more sense than that. And we all agree on it, but this is actually our next step. And next article that we’re going to discuss is regarding Elon Musk was on Joe Rogan this week, an episode of the Joe Rogan experience. Very interesting talk now lasted about three hours, but we got a few tidbits of information were really interesting in it.

[00:13:08] And one of it that color high was that, eh, Elan. Said that he talked with the Biden administration about implementing a carbon tax and they apparently weren’t really receptive to it in his word. He said, they see, they said that well to seems to be too politically difficult to, to, to do.

[00:13:29]Seth: I, I get it like nobody wants to see the gas prices go up.

[00:13:32] I mean, if you look at France the, the whole strike this year was because they tried to raise the price of gasoline a little bit. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know if it was just that and it was last year actually, but yeah,

[00:13:45] Fred: but still, I mean, there’s way to implement it without affecting the lower income people.

[00:13:52] Right. And the country, right.

[00:13:55] Seth: Elan did mention that, you know, those people a rebate also like you know, the. If you, if you said, Hey, look, we’re not doing a carbon tax this year, but like a carbon tax in four years is coming, like for sure. So plan for it, like sell, sell your SUV, get a, you know, if you’re, you don’t have a lot of money and you don’t want to spend a lot of gas on gas, like putting one a little bit further out there, maybe a good answer for

[00:14:25] Fred: that.

[00:14:26] Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Like, like Elan’s point was, was very reasonable. Like if there is an unpriced externality, like the price, the cost that we have as a, as a society. In immediate CO2 emissions going into the atmosphere and the oceans. There’s a customer that is it’s clear, it’s bolded, zero customer health term of hair pollution, but also long-term costs in term of, or the Zira costs.

[00:14:54] Also like you look at Miami much, you’re spending in the. I’m trying to solve their water problem and literally going on the water, there’s a bunch of other places like that. So there’s direct costs like that, but there’s also a long-term cost of fishery. If the fishing industry is getting destroyed by how the CO2 is affecting the ocean and everything.

[00:15:15] So there’s all those direct costs and they need to be accounted for. And if you. But the markets there doesn’t see that cost cause the, the, the, the there’s no actual price on it. If there’s not actual price on it, they don’t care. You just have to, if you put a price on it, then they’re going to start to do the right thing automatically.

[00:15:33] Yeah. But I mean, of course you say that, that people are like, yeah, well, why aren’t you just doing the right thing in the first place without the money? I mean, it just doesn’t work like that. Like we’re not, we’re not wired that way, unfortunately. At least not all of us, but. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be in the cards for the Biden administration.

[00:15:52]I don’t necessarily blame them. Yeah. I know.

[00:15:54] Seth: It’s super popular.

[00:15:56] Fred: Yeah. So

[00:15:57] Seth: like, I mean, the other option is like taxing at the well or taxing at the refinery or something like that. Yeah. I mean, the money is it’s still going to cost more to buy gasoline, but it won’t be like, you know, the breakdown won’t be like, this is the money from

[00:16:11] Fred: the.

[00:16:12] Yeah, but you know, all the oil industry is like, they, they will let you know that the reason you’re paying more is because they are getting taxed at the other friend, RESO. They, they, they are, they, they don’t have a good history in term of propaganda and marketing the ball. It’s not proper again, it’s actually through, like, it would be, would be through that.

[00:16:28] The, the, the government would be the reason why the, the gas prices increases. I mean the, they will frame it in a way that, that looks worse than

[00:16:36] Seth: it actually. Yeah. And also if you tax it at the, well, then the military and government also has to pay more for, for gasoline, whereas they don’t typically pay like the taxes that come at the, you know, at the gas station,

[00:16:53] So that would be better for getting the military off of oil as

[00:16:57] Fred: well. Yeah. So short of that, short of actually putting a price on carbon, which would be the fairest way to, to, to address the problem. You have to counter balance this, like. On the officials subsidy that the oil industry gets by getting a subsidy to a green technology.

[00:17:16] In this case, solar wind with the ITC and, and electric vehicles with with with this, this federal tax credit. And Because to be fair when Elan said tax the make a carbon tax, he said for electricity and gasoline. So actually actually a trustee that is produced with fossil fuels, like, like coal would, would be taxed higher than if you get solar.

[00:17:40] If you get electricity from solar source. So if you have an entry vehicle, your cost, if you get it from the grid with a high mix of coal in the coal production, in the of production, from coal in that grid you would get your costs for you that your vehicle go up to. But it would also force those people to find alternative.

[00:18:00] Cause that’s, that’s ultimately, that’s the nice thing about that. Cubicle is you get a bite limited, you get more options to fuel it. If you have a gasoline powered car, you have one option gasoline. If you have an SUV vehicle, you can get it from the grid and from the grid. Sometimes you have some options, some I have to utilities will offer you some electricity from a renewable source versus or they give you like rebate and things like that for to counterbalance with, with if you’re literally stuck with coal, you can get a rebate for solar and whatnot, or, but you can also get it directly.

[00:18:38] If, if you have the opportunity, if you own your home, you can get solar and everything. So, so there is. Like limited somewhere options. And that, that that’s the core of it. So if you are in this situation, you could decide all right, now that it cost me more to get majesty from coal, I’ll look into solar.

[00:18:56] So

[00:18:57] yeah,

[00:18:58] Seth: I mean, if electricity prices go up that makes solar all the better.

[00:19:03] Fred: I mean, most places it’s already cheaper anyway. So but when you have a bigger upfront cost people yeah. Would like a return on investment faster, and that would be a faster return on investment for sure. All right. Other interesting thing that Ilan brought up during the, the Dragan interview he talked about the Roadster a little bit.

[00:19:21]I mean, we always like to hear about the Roadster. It’s been delayed a few times, but earlier this year, Ilan said that That they’re completing the engineering this year and they are bringing it to production next year. So we know that the idea of the Roadster is being completed basically right now.

[00:19:38]It, it has evolved a little bit since don’t billing in 2017. And we know, especially with last month on wheeling of the mall as plan and plan plus that’s coming later this year or actually in the podcast, it did say, but Nick said in a year now a year. Yeah. Which would put in an actually in 20, 22, not the end of the year, but I mean, that, that could have been just him giving a broad timeline on the, on the car anyway, even forget the plat.

[00:20:02] Plus just the plant itself is, is getting competitive with what this learned nouns with, with the Roadsters. So now they’re going to have to have higher capacity with the Roadster and part of that is going to be that space it’s packaged and. I mean, everyone’s been talking about it for a while.

[00:20:19] About the core, I think thrusters on it, giving it either like a boost or acceleration, or even be able to hover at one point he said, and now that the engineering has been completed on the car, you were starting to think that like, all right, this, if this thing’s gonna actually make it to production, this basics package is going to have fat and now, and he seems to be very serious about doing it on this show.

[00:20:40] He was like, yeah, we’re going to throw I’m quoting here. We are going to choose some rocket technology in that car. I want it to, or to hover we got to figure out how to make it hover without giving people that, that would be that would be a nice addition if it doesn’t kill people, this is, I mean, it’s not necessary, but I like that in my car.

[00:21:00] When my car doesn’t kill people, I always feel better about it. I

[00:21:03] Seth: want to know if it can go over water though. Like, is it like a hug?

[00:21:06] Fred: You did say that it’s not okay, because when you say like hover, you can, are you literally just talking about like lifted up on the ground, just for show for a second or something.

[00:21:14] And, but Rogan asked him if it’s going to move. He said, yeah, you can move it. You said, you’d go pretty fast, but you’re going to be time limited. So it’s just going to be like hopping, like for a little while, I

[00:21:24] Seth: guess, you know, what did you think? Like a minute or 30 seconds or I doubt

[00:21:29] Fred: it’s going to keep I guess 4,000 pound car up in the air for her.

[00:21:34] For a minute. I mean, you talking about a high pressure Hara bottle, the silly late. So lifting up your hair for a whole minute, be able to do

[00:21:44] Seth: it while you’re driving. Like, can you just drive? And you’re like approaching like a Lake and then you just click the buttons and start floating and then you go over the Lake and then you.

[00:21:53] I mean,

[00:21:53] Fred: I think that could be a possible cause you, you, you, you do that. If you have trusters that go towards your ground, you just put all of those trusts and then you stalking about having one in the bag that you just flipped the license plate and it pushed you to the bank. So if you do that, and then you really, some hair on the back, you can, you can move pretty fast, pretty quick.

[00:22:12] Right? And like now, because it’s not like rolling resistance announces, it’s literally like, unless ferric resistance is the air around you. That’s that stuff. And you said that. There’s a lot easier to go through. So, so yeah, I feel like it’s a possible just album. You can stay in the air and I’ll know

[00:22:28] Seth: that would be really cool to not have to use bridges, you know, just to cross like a river real quick,

[00:22:34] Fred: but you’re gonna, you’re gonna have to be very precise on that because like you said through you don’t, you don’t want to drop too fast cause.

[00:22:41] I mean, you said you’re going to put a height limit on it. So probably like a mirror to six feet. So that’s three through the six feet, which that’s still crazy. Yeah, that’s crazy. But like you said, it wouldn’t kill you, but also you would, it would destroy your suspension if you drop from that. So you’re going to have to slow moly land, really?

[00:23:00] And

[00:23:01] Seth: they’re doing yolks now, right? Instead of steering wheels, you’re, you’re kind of in three dimensions. So you may like pull it back and

[00:23:11] Fred: exactly, super cool. Actually, I didn’t think of that. I mean, I get it, like, let’s be honest people. It’s insane. It’s it’s crazy. But it also makes some sense. I mean, the hover is just because if it’s there.

[00:23:30] Well do it right. But of course the actual idea behind it is yes, there is a lot of value of providing a trust or a cold, their trust or propulsion in the back for acceleration that will, that will kill your, your, your zero to 60 times. Nothing is going to be able to get close to that. I mean, it’s going to break next, literally.

[00:23:50]If you’re not careful. And it also gives you trust on the, on the sides and downward trust to, to keep you on the ground. And there’s lot of things for just regular driving that doesn’t need to be strong enough to pull you in the air. But again, if, if like, you’re, you’re like 90% there, if you before the hover, so you just have like to crank it up and that, so, yeah.

[00:24:16] And if you’re really on Musk, of course, it’s. That’s an easy decision. You’re gonna make parallel

[00:24:20] Seth: parking easy. You could have. So check this out. This is an idea. So if we go six feet up, instead of having a garage, like a, you know, a sideways garage, you could park your car up, you know, over your other car.

[00:24:35] You don’t have like a platform and just like pull it in there. Instead of, you know, like that the guy who runs a Nvidia has like 17 portraits.

[00:24:44] Fred: Well, I mean, that’s, that’s the thing though. I mean, well, what would they call that? They’re that lifts there. Lifts. Yeah.

[00:24:49] Seth: So you don’t need one of those, you just

[00:24:52] Fred: park all still need like a platform or something.

[00:24:54] You don’t want them to literally limb on the car, right?

[00:24:57] Seth: No, you have a platform, but you land, you know, you have your car and then you have another layer for your, your car. Save some money, parking in the city. You don’t have to worry about You know, and just second

[00:25:07] Fred: level. Yeah. Yeah. We gonna have to see it.

[00:25:12] Like it’s, it’s, it’s pretty crazy, but it sounds like it’s happening and this is working on it right now. This is going to be completed this year. Kenny

[00:25:21] Seth: Gates and fences no longer a problem just right

[00:25:25] Fred: over there. You also reiterated the fact that if you choose a space X package option, the, the air high-pressure hair bottle is going to be in the back where the backseat would go because a Roadster is supposed to have four seats.

[00:25:37] Yeah. That’s,

[00:25:37] Seth: that’s a big,

[00:25:39] Fred: yeah. Four seats. It’d be nice. So I know you’re getting through Roadster. And you’re not even sure if you’re going to keep one, but if you do keep on, do you go for a seat or you go space expanded?

[00:25:51] Seth: I dunno. It’s hard to tell like I, I, you know, obviously we’re going to learn a lot more about it, so I’m going to defer to when I know everything I can possibly know,

[00:26:01] Fred: let’s assume a few things is going to be more expensive than a four-seater option.

[00:26:05] So you would have to pay extra. I don’t know if you, like, if the gave us like the founder series, I would assume that you did, I’m not going to make us pay anything on it, but I mean, that’s an, that’s an assumption of mine. Right. But let’s assume that, but doesn’t mean it’s more expensive. But let’s assume that, I mean, in term of performance, I thing in the world, it was going to come close to it.

[00:26:27] Not even like a million dollar super

[00:26:30] Seth: car. Right. I mean, I don’t know, like, I really like. The Roadster that we went in for the initial ride, that was like, as fast as I’d ever want to go at any point, there’s like no reason to want to go that fast. Like it’s painful. Like it was, it was it wasn’t, you know, when you, you know, on the, the D rides, everybody’s like chuckling, when they’re going really fast, this was different.

[00:26:56] It’s like, you know, it wasn’t like, it was a different kind of.

[00:27:01] Fred: Experience. I mean, you said it during the podcast 2.3 and 1.9. There’s a, there’s a big difference between the two. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s actually like a big difference. Right? You’ll have to do the GS, like, like, I don’t know, like that’s a different

[00:27:16] Seth: yeah.

[00:27:16] That’s the other question? Like, how do you get tires that can keep like the regular, the regular Roadster was spinning all four wheels. You’re going to have to have some crazy time. I mean, I guess with, with the With the rocket boosters then. Yeah.

[00:27:30] Fred: But even, even, even with that you just going to go run through your tires super fast, but mean, I already run through my tire super fast with them.

[00:27:37] Right. All three performance. And that’s with three, three seconds doing 60. So, all right. Next next news item that came out of the podcast bill Gates. I mean, I was kind of surprised by that, but. So w we reported a while back when bill Gates made some comments about battery electric trucks saying that it’s never going to happen.

[00:28:01] And of course we, we trashed those comments back then, right. It made no sense, but Joe Rogan brought them up during the show and had Ian on addressed it. And of course he learned this at the same thing we did back then. Like, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about in this case. And And you brought up the fact that they already have prototypes that work.

[00:28:21] I, I don’t know if that’s a perfect answer because it’s not just like the energy density in it. Like you can show it that works for sure. But then yeah, I’ll chop the shredder, the economics of it worst, but he did have a good point about what you said and that article actually confirming the same that the bash pack or at least the.

[00:28:42] Is this, the mind is going to be 501 which is on the lowest side that we were expecting for sure. And you said that if you’re having a $500 backpack, it’s, it’s not a big game changer in terms of the weight of the tractor is of course you have to manage with the economics of upright transport that mine age, the weight of the tracker so that you don’t pass the next Memorial.

[00:29:04] Right. Of 80,000 pounds on the road with, with your load and with the trailer. So it’s all a whole generation of trying to optimize your load pounds per mile is what you going to charge them ultimately. So you want to have the lightest charter possible. They can still pull 80,000 pounds, or you can have a 40, 45,000 pound load or something like that.

[00:29:29] And And he always says with, especially with a structural backpack that he on the bill last year, if you have a 512 hour structural backpack that you build with us with some eye on the weight, there’s not that much either way , you don’t give up that much weight, even though we’re used to that you Eagles being a little bit heavier than their gasoline power counterpart.

[00:29:51] So, so that was an interesting thing. But then like you to give some kind of reason why Dates with a, sort of a negative on Testa. And he said that according, I also heard that at one point he had a large short position on Tesla. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but things weird, people like, huh?

[00:30:13] Very weird. Yeah. People I know would know the situation pretty well. That’s almost Trump past like, Oh, people that I know said I asked them, are you sure? And they said, yes, he has a huge short position on Tesla. And that didn’t work out too well. Bill use of the loss kind of all of the money, like a lot of people did on shorting Tesla.

[00:30:32] So he didn’t give a timeline, but we know that last year that’s the one on a crazy run and estimated people, collectively people at short position on Tesla lost $38 billion. Of course, if I actually reached out to the bill Gates foundation to see if they can get a comment on that from from bill.

[00:30:51]I don’t expect that we, that we’re going to get one, but I would like to have a confirming, like is inside of the story you hear, because it doesn’t sound like the shorting type, like is more like exactly. You invest very long-term stuff and everything. So it doesn’t sound like him. It’s not impossible though, because you guys been more critical of Elon and Tesla then than you would think coming from him.

[00:31:14]And personally, like, I’m not like I’m not all the shorts or the devils, like like Elan things and like, and like like a lot of more people think that like a lot of people I’ve been recently introduced to the idea of, of, of short short sellers with the old game stop thing and EMC and the whole wall street bet on Reddit.

[00:31:31]I mean, I think there’s a place for short sellers, like, because let’s be honest, there’s some companies that are bad that do bad, that lie. That like that it would make sense to bet against it. Like, I mean, I’m not a big fan of what’s his face NYCLA. No, no. The short seller that, that they did against Enron the guy is always on CNBC, trashing, Tesla, Jim something Nope.

[00:31:53] Channels, channels. All right. That, that guy, I mean, I give credit where credit credit is due. Like you, you saw the fraud that, that Enron was put a short position against it exposed. It made a bunch of money when it failing and it had to fail. It was defrauding people. So there’s nothing bad with that.

[00:32:19] Now. Also there’s nothing bad thinking that Tesla. Is overvalued. Like there’s definitely arguments to be made with that. I’m not on board with it, but I can definitely see our argument. I can not have a rational conversation with someone that says that this is what we value. That makes sense me, but I am not, but shorting it though.

[00:32:39] I don’t know, because like you have to look what’s. W what’s the positive icon for that? Like, yeah, you could make some money if there is a correction on Tesla, but at the same time test, as valuation contributes to his mission. And I think the mission is more important than all those things like to be. To, to, to accelerate the advent of renewable energy and energy transport.

[00:33:03] And this high valuation certainly as helped us let, because they were able to raise a ton of money from the high valuation. So I don’t know. And I’ll be conflicted about that, but I’m not, I don’t want to demonize the shorts. I don’t like, of course the shorts that are lying about desktop, like they’re take a short position and then they do a bunch of propaganda about in everything.

[00:33:21] That’s of course that’s horrible. But in general, I don’t hate shorts.

[00:33:30] All right. All right. And then another big thing that turned on the market this week is we learned earlier this week on Monday that the slow when they released or 10 not thank you. The 10 K finding the sec. They reveal that last month they bought the above a large position in Bitcoin.

[00:33:45] The the $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. The the, the, the said that it was part of a move to diversify with alternative reserve assets. So that included both digital assets, like the I mean, the, the call between digital assets never heard that, but and also gold, they bought gold too.

[00:34:08] So, so the Tesla is like at the end of last quarter at close to $20 billion. So do you use the, the use 1.5 to buy Bitcoin? And they didn’t disclose the goal though. The amount of gold that they bought, but of course the Bitcoin is what caught a lot of the headlines. Anyway, people didn’t care much about their slaves buying gold and it sent it some big coins go on a big run.

[00:34:35] What is it today like 48,000 I mean, last month when they bought it. So they already made the, a lot of money cause $48,000 now, and a month ago it was trading between 38 and $30,000. So the, so they bought somewhere in between those and it’s already up $48,000. So there was, that was a good move.

[00:34:58] But of course the part of the rallies because of the study itself. So self fulfilling prophecy right there. What do you think about it, sir?

[00:35:09] Seth: The bigger news, I guess maybe was that they’re going to start accepting where they’re going to try to start accepting Bitcoin as payment for their cars. I think that might be a kind of a hidden gem because I know there’s a lot of money out there in Bitcoin,

[00:35:26] Fred: Bitcoin millionaires.

[00:35:27] Seth: Yeah. And you know, What’s

[00:35:30] Fred: that they might want a Tesla. So there’s that?

[00:35:32] Seth: Yeah. I mean, I think we did a story in like 2014 or something where somebody bought a Tesla, used it in Bitcoin, so it’s not something new, but and you know that the idea of cashing out and then buying it and then, you know, Tesla’s taking, taking on the rest.

[00:35:50] I think they said that they would, you know, convert it immediately into cash. But I still think taking Bitcoin payments may open up the market for some, for some new buyers. I mean, particularly some buyers that just made a ton of money that, you know, that the buyers that are just really happy about Tesla getting into Bitcoin and they now have a lot more money and maybe they want to buy

[00:36:13] Fred: a of them.

[00:36:15] Literally just. Take the profit from Tesla announcing that the big point, you just shave that off and buy a car with that. Like it’s, it’s crazy. But I know like some people are not on board with this idea because like, Bitcoin is not really transactional. Like it’s, it’s, it’s more like a asset right now.

[00:36:33] It’s like gold, like Tesla itself. Just basically compare it to go than this. In this announcement. So you don’t, you don’t really go to the car dealership in, in with, with a bunch of gold and you’re like, give me a car. So this is kind of the same thing. Like, especially if you, if you’re going to take the goal, then change it into cash.

[00:36:53] But after this is going to be the same principle there. So it doesn’t mean that much on that front, but yeah, I understand from your standpoint, what you’re talking about for for Tesla, it makes sense to. Can really create some dumb and from that, but yeah. Yeah. Also some people are not on board with it due to the environmental impact of Bitcoin.

[00:37:14] It does as an entity, as the blockchain does require a lot of electricity so that people are seeing that as an issue. I think it recently just surpass Argentina in term of electricity needs. It’s crazy. As a, as a whole, it’s like. A decent sized country now just to maintain the blockchain, just to pass the transaction on, on the blockchain.

[00:37:39] But at the same time, I kind of have to think that, I mean, th th there’s electricity in effect, it’s, it’s coming from the miners. Like the miners are the one that they’re paying for the electricity to mind that currency. And they, they get some, some of that crypto in return to pay for that. Electricity use and the computing power that is required to mine it, and the whole idea between mining is to balance that computing costs electricity costs with the rewards from mining.

[00:38:12] And so you want to maintain that if we discuss as low as possible and in this day and age, the lower electricity cost you can get is from renewable is from solar is from wind it’s from. I do electricity. So I kinda, I would like to see a concrete study on that and see, where did they to steal the Bitcoin is using, is coming from my guess would be that it probably mostly from renewable sources.

[00:38:38] My guess I don’t have any actual stats from that, but I’m just running through the logic here. And I think, I think it makes sense.

[00:38:46] Seth: Yeah. I mean some people even think that Bitcoin makes Solar or more and more wind, but makes wind more viable because like, you know, for instance, in California, when there’s so much solar that you can’t do anything with it theoretically you could fire up a bunch of mining rigs on that extra solar power and make some money and that money could, you know, Help the balance sheet and building solar.

[00:39:14] So theoretically you’re building a wind farm or you’re building a solar farm and you’re saying, all right, well, when the prices get really low, when we’re like, over-saturating the electricity market, we put some of that into Bitcoin mining rigs, and then we can therefore pay off our, our investment. So in that way, it kind of makes some sense.

[00:39:34]But you know, overall there are some serious questions to be answered about the energy usage of Bitcoin. Yeah,

[00:39:40] Fred: I get it. I mean, I suggested that to Jason used w w K zero 57, like, well, known the hacker in a Tesla community. Yeah. It’s a giant home solar system. I think it’s like. The 40 kilowatts is something that makes it, it makes no sense.

[00:39:55] I mean, he doesn’t use like you use a fraction of a centricity and he also has of course, a very big self-build Tesla battery on system. So I suggested to him, you should, you should use that extra solar that you, that you make to. To, to, to build some kind of mining rig in that I, he was receptive Natty.

[00:40:15] I don’t know if he ever kind of came through with it. I need to look into it. I mean, he’s, he’s

[00:40:19] Seth: on the grid though. He can just send his extras energy.

[00:40:22] Fred: I think it was, he, he built it up grid. I’m not, I’m not sure, but I mean, yeah, it was, it’s also, I don’t know if like net muttering exists in North Carolina again, right.

[00:40:33] To penetrate. I don’t know, but I mean here, like right now my house is not being heated and I’m in Quebec, in the, in the winter. And 90% of my heating is coming from mining rigs. I have, I have three mining rigs in my house located in different rooms and those things, they, they eat up so much that they, they take up my, my eating.

[00:40:53] So they actually replaced my trusty costs from eating to, to mining. And also it’s coming from hydro electricity. So. My my house is literally powered mining bit, not the Queensland mining Ethereum right now. How much, how

[00:41:06] Seth: much money have you in dollars

[00:41:08] Fred: in dollars? I mean, I’ve been doing it for over a year now.

[00:41:12] Probably got three. If their arms, it’s not three, three, three, either three, either. And right now that I never sold them and they’re worth 1800 bucks each right now. So I’m actually probably made money at this point already a year and a year and a half into it. Probably because you can account for the cost of electricity, of course.

[00:41:30] And well, actually it’s been done by the council that you see, I, I heat with electricity here. So so that, that counterbalance itself basically, and the, the cost of the mining machines to I mean, th the biggest around thousand bucks, I think it’s 800 bucks or something. Right. So, so, yeah, I’ve probably made money at this point.

[00:41:46] I one here in this room though, I only, I only shut it down from when I’m doing the podcast, because it’s a little bit loud for the podcast, but then as soon as the podcast had done, turn it back on. And so I’m losing money doing the podcast right now. People didn’t like, that’s how much I love you guys.

[00:42:02] Seth: I it is, it is interesting that the other part of that like, well, the excess heat from the resistance, from the, from the video cards and the, you know, the GPS is heating your home. That makes that’s an interesting point of the equation.

[00:42:19] Fred: People were discussing too. Like if you link Bitcoin, Tesla, what if like all Tesla vehicles right now, there’s a supercomputer that is not being used when it’s parked.

[00:42:29] So if you’re plugged in and you’re parked well to come together, obviously or why not? Would you be able to mind some cryptocurrency would that, would that computer of course Even if it’s plugged in, you still use some of your battery cars because the anchor see something come to the battery and then the batteries is being charged.

[00:42:50] So there is some degradation on that front, but I mean, it’s probably, it would be small so that there there’s some calculation to be made if it’s actually worded, but it could be interesting.

[00:43:00] Seth: Yeah. I would much rather have my car mining Bitcoin than being used as a taxi.

[00:43:06] Fred: Yeah. I mean famously said doesn’t want any Ford in scars, but by himself.

[00:43:12] And that’s my main but yeah, I mean, you could imagine something like, especially if, even if they’re not plugged in, they even imagine it feels like the cyber truck, for example, that’s the, does this solar cover thing and we’re going to get into that too, but Elan discussed it a little bit in term of introducing solar.

[00:43:31] Sells on cars. He said that the cyber truck is gonna be the first one with the cover for the bed being solar powered so that that’s not going to hide a lot of mileage. Like you said, I think around 10 miles per day for a separate truck, but what it would though, it would also cancel any, any vampire drain for the car.

[00:43:51] Yeah. And that’s it. As you want to mind the car, then you could, it could be mining. Cryptocurrency with solar, if that was an option on it. So that, that could be interesting. Yeah. Once

[00:44:03] Seth: you fill up your battery, you just, it switches over to mining. Yeah. I mean, that’s not going to be, that’s not going to turn out a lot of coins, but

[00:44:12] Fred: no, but yeah, I mean the, the, the whole thing about this, this hardware 3.0 computer is that it’s, it’s, it’s efficient too, so right.

[00:44:22] All right, moving on. No. Oh, I guess I didn’t put this on everything in there, but yeah, he discussed introducing you basically explain what we all know for, for a while. Now he explained to Rogan why solar on Corazon not make that much sense? Because of the under surface area of the solar and the efficiency of solar cell these days.

[00:44:46] And if you want to go much higher and you. Go much higher in costs do so balanced. Don’t make sense. You’re much better off having solar on your home. Yeah. And then charging your car like that. But explain for bigger cars. It could make sense like the cyber trucks bed would make sense. Any also talk about the Tesla van.

[00:45:06] I mean, if you remember a few weeks ago, we only confirmed that that’s the we’ll make event. As soon as it makes sense in term of battery supply. As soon as they have the batteries floated to make those vans. And he said for a van that you would make a lot of sense to have a solar roof on it, because you have a much bigger surface area that is flat.

[00:45:22] So you can put solar cells on that. And he also suggested to put the deployable roof on each side where you could extend it. And it was all pretty much talking about camping. Like it can think then you make it like a little tiny motor home, really like it, a little sprinter ones. That, so with extending on each side, yet you provide shade.

[00:45:41] You can build like Like a little camping area, all of it. And on those shades, there’s also solar cells on it. So now you can have like a triple the roof area in solar power and that could generate decent amount. But again, I want to say decent amount, we’re talking probably 30 miles a day. It’s not nothing crazy.

[00:46:01]However, it’s still useful. Like, especially if you, if you do a campaign type of the camper with that, With that van, then let’s see you have like 300 miles all over there that you can literally let go 300 miles from your home. You sit at like a camping spot where you, where your car is. You can either plug it in or you can just pull out the solar.

[00:46:22] And if you’re staying there for a few days, then you can replenish your battery. Or you can also run things out of your van with that or power. So it’s a, it’s a no brainer in my opinion, it just, it just makes sense. Okay. I don’t think this is gonna be the first to do it, but we going to see that happen a lot.

[00:46:41] I

[00:46:42] Seth: thought a Yuan was a little bit dismissive of solar powered cars. Like I, you know, I agree like normal cars. You can’t really build a normal car and have it covered with solar panels and get any, you know, useful range out of it. But, you know, 20 miles is not nothing like a lot of people You don’t have a commute of 20 miles a day.

[00:47:02] So. Like theoretically, they would get most of their miles from solar. You know, we’ll, you’ve seen cars like a Lightspeed and that one, the sole sole Scion cyan or, yeah. And then there’s that other one? Aptera like the three wheeled one. Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, they claim to be almost entirely powered by solar.

[00:47:24] Obviously you can charge them by a traditional means, but because they’re so efficient and so aerodynamic, and then, you know, the wheels are very small and there’s, it’s small inside, but in that case, you’re kind of, you’re getting a real, like a long distance in the sun then. And those kinds of all, em, Come from those solar races that there’s one in Australia where they go from like Darwin to Adelaide.

[00:47:50] And there’s one in the U S that, you know, they kind of cross and they’re, these are kind of like bikes that have like a covering a super aerodynamic solar covering they’re very quick crash with those. No, you don’t even want to like. Tip over those things, you probably just fall apart, but they’re so light.

[00:48:09] They’re so aerodynamic. And this, the covering of solar is enough to power them along with, with a passenger too. So it can definitely be done. It’s just the trade offs are, you know, to have like a normal car that you would expect to have is isn’t great.

[00:48:24] Fred: So, yeah. And all those cars is especially that Tara, for example, and the, the, the lights the, the lightning one is one of them a little bit, a bit more bullish on, but the , the whole thing is that, or solar matter on it, because it’s so efficient, but at the same time to make the car so efficient, they have to make it like.

[00:48:47] I wrote more aerodynamic and making it all there more over the NAMIC it reduced the surface on which you can put solar. So like, it is, there’s this weird trade-off here that you have to be careful for. So I’m going to want to see like extensive tests on those cars to, to, to really see like the impact on solar, on them.

[00:49:05]Because I have a suspicion that’s a little bit gimmicky, like to see that they are solar power, like yeah. I want to see actual use cases, not extreme use cases, someone that has like a 30 mile commute or something like that and see like how much of it is going to be solar and how much you need to charge it, which is fine.

[00:49:24] Again, I think a mix of both is perfectly fine, but if your advertise your car has solar power, like we have to be clear about what they really are. Yeah. All right. Toyota. The electric car and a U S what is this? What is happening? Yeah, I mean, Toyota is, is, is announcements sometimes. And now the, like, they kind of announce a few months ago, like, Oh, we’re making an electric SUV, like sent out the press release and everything.

[00:49:54] We’re making electric SUV and more like, cool. Show it to us or something, but all right. Now they’re saying we’re bringing electric cars all at your cars to the U S the, to your, the North America. And that began the Butte in the U S this year three new electrify models, but don’t panic.

[00:50:13] They did specify to be these and a PHEV. So two ology vehicle and a plug-in hybrid. Crazy thing though, in the same announcement, which again, extremely little the announcement. That’s basically what I just said. Like that’s it, those three cars are coming to the U S are going to be the beauty of this year in the U S and the same announcement.

[00:50:33] They were like, Hey, by the way, a plug-in hybrid is just as good as like all electric cars. See, as long as you don’t use the gas part. Yeah. They released a study showing that all the vehicles produce just as much emissions as plug-in hybrids, which of course you can show those, you can make numbers say anything and you can probably make them say that I didn’t look too deep into the study because of course, I mean, w we, we see the value of plugging hybrids, electric, that we understand it, and everything is just that all electric vehicles are obviously the future here and bugging the hybrids where.

[00:51:10] Sort of like a compromise for a while, a transitional vehicle and eh, the all three vehicles I’ve improved so much at this point that it just doesn’t make sense to focus on plug-in hybrids right now, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re you right now on the toolmaker working on the plug-in hybrid program, you’re kind of wasting your time.

[00:51:27] You just put those resources on making better all electric vehicles right now. And you’re probably being very, or actually. But the resources and making more batteries, probably like as a, of course the biggest advantage in my view of a plug-in hybrid is not that, Oh, we can go long distance with the gas tanks to full gas state is that you can, if you optimize it right, you can drive a lot of electric mileage without adding a big battery pack in it.

[00:51:54] So you can make more of them with the limited battery supply that we have right now, that’s, that’s nothing in the biggest advantage of plug-in hybrids are ever. Obviously it’s a compromise having two powertrains in the car or a generator for your energy powertrain. So, yeah. I don’t know what he’s teaching.

[00:52:12] He felt the need to say that, especially the eye announcing to all electric vehicle in bed, but it’s not like they were saying like, Oh, we’re making for plug-in hybrid. And then one electric, no, you’re making two, all electric vehicle. And the plug-in hybrid, by the way, plug-in average was just as good as the two electric vehicles.

[00:52:27] Right.

[00:52:29] Seth: I guess maybe that’s for their current lineup. Cause they have the the primes, the, a RAV4 prime and the a Prius prime.

[00:52:37] Fred: Yeah. That’s that’s all you have on the market right now. So they still want to sell those. Right. But at the end of the day, it’s two more, I’ll let you be equal in the market

[00:52:48] Seth: and they released zero information.

[00:52:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:52:52] Fred: But it’s going to be also, how do you read that announced plans to debut? In the U S market this year. So,

[00:53:03] or are you going to be available to purchase this year? Like normally my, to

[00:53:10] Seth: me it felt like at the end of the year, they’re going to sell some compliance cards.

[00:53:13] Fred: Yeah. That’s, that’s normally the verbiage. Are they going to use when these, like we’ve seen announcements all the time? Of course I’m from automakers and they all use different language a little bit, but Like debuted.

[00:53:23] Sometimes it will be just to show a car for the first time. So that doesn’t mean that they’re going to like the, it could literally mean we’re going to show it in the U S market this year, which, which doesn’t mean they’re going to sell it this year. It was just like a, not necessarily a concept, but I mean, it, it’s not, it’s not completely clear.

[00:53:45] All right. One vehicle it’s going to be coming this year, for sure. That’s kinda, that was a little bit this week. It wasn’t that big of a deal because we pretty much knew everything about the car was the Audi e-tron GT and RS version of the GT two was on the bill. So that’s that’s basically our, these version of the from Porsche there, the, the, the share the same platform, but.

[00:54:08] To be fair. ADI did a lot of modification on their leads, in tune at different the Also the design obviously is different so that these items is pretty much the main thing that people were looking for because all the vehicle before where either to concept or easily camouflage a production version, now the unveiled a final production version, and it’s, it’s sexy as hell.

[00:54:30] Like it’s, it’s, it’s a great looking car. Yeah, I

[00:54:33] Seth: would say one of the best looking EBS

[00:54:35] Fred: out there. Yeah. I mean, I’m a fan of the Tiken design, but that’s, I mean,

[00:54:41] Seth: Almost almost feel bad for the tie can, like, it’s gonna be hard to buy a tie cane when you know this one’s out there. Yeah. It looks

[00:54:51] Fred: nice. Yeah.

[00:54:52] That’s a great looking car right there. I mean too many buttons for me, but still

[00:54:58] Seth: they liked their buttons. Although this, you know, a lot of those buttons were software buttons, so yeah.

[00:55:04] Fred: So. Yeah, the, the power train is, is the same. So you had an 93 kilowatt hour battery pack, the 800 volt system that you find in the Porsche 270 kilowatt charging, all the great stuff.

[00:55:16] It’s awesome. And that the powertrain, you have the, the, the GT version that normal GT and the RS GT that a little bit more powerful. So the normal e-tron GT, which it’s called a premium plus and the prestige. The ad 350 kilowatt of combined monitor power with the over boost, which I think is, well, yeah, with launch control, I had 2.5 seconds, zero to 60, and the RS gets 400 no, up to 475 kilowatts of combined Hartford.

[00:55:53] So a decent bond over them. Three 50. Oh, okay. W that’s the way the verbal, so three 90, so three 94, the prestige and version, and a four 75 thought possible output from the RS version in term of mileage, which, I mean, if you remember the Porsche officially gets an EPE of 200, 201 miles, the e-tron the estimate, that’s going to be 230.

[00:56:20] For the GT e-tron GT and 232 for the RS e-tron GT. It was kind of surprised by that, but at the same time, we know that Porsche has been extremely conservative with a 201 miles in the, in a tie. Can you, you can get more than that. All of the car.

[00:56:36] Seth: Yeah, Edmonton’s got 120 extra miles.

[00:56:39] Fred: Yeah, it’s crazy.

[00:56:41] No, sir. But I mean, I wouldn’t count on 300 miles on the top 10, but I would easily count on 30 miles more like this. Like, like those estimates from the EPA well for the EPA it’s what are the, is expecting from the EPA test? If that makes sense, pricing starts at a hundred thousand dollars, go 140 for the R S version.

[00:57:03] So not cheap. It’s not like it, but it’s similar to the tie. Can’t really, it’s a, it’s cheaper than a tie. Can’t really win for at least for the higher powered version that are S if you convert it to the turbo, think’s a little less expensive. Now of course, ADI on the bill is that a few weeks after it has done on wheels, then you will ask some people are like, ah, it doesn’t compare to the mole acid at all.

[00:57:25] I don’t know, like it. It’s it’s gotta be different people buying this. Like it’s not, it’s not either, or like, it’s, this is a beautiful car. A lot of Audi fans are gonna love it. This is the new like flagship Holly and will opinion like people that are big ADI fans, like the idea that I have a great following audio, they’re known for their quality and everything.

[00:57:46] So I’m glad that they exist. I know. All right. Do we want to jump into the comments if you’re want jump in

[00:57:55] Seth: here? Alright. Voting Dave says the tax rebate has paradoxically hurt companies like Tesla that were first to bring EVs to the market because without extending the credit, they become disadvantages compared to the companies that came later.

[00:58:08] That’s a lot of what we were talking about. It is paradox, but. You can’t really like that’s, that’s the rules of the

[00:58:16] Fred: game, I guess. And the same time, like that’s, that’s been doing pretty well in the U S without the tax credit, like this they’re still the market leader in the U S despite that being in some vintage, like yeah, like built in Dave

[00:58:29] Seth: Johnson.

[00:58:30] Yeah. They did drop their prices a little bit, but I think they were the first company to like, kind of take, take a a loss of a incentive. And not lose any market share, sell for in the beginning, but the, then a disadvantage. Good. It’s good is to be extended. Carbon tax makes the most sense for the marketing electrification.

[00:58:51] And that’s also what we said.

[00:58:54]Fred: Assets, even if they do reduce the price to match the price that it was before the incentive, a lot of people are just are like the, the, the seat as a like if you go to a store and there’s a pair of jeans that. Is 60 bucks, but has been discounted 50% and they have another pair of jeans right next to that.

[00:59:12] It’s 60 bucks, but that’s the regular price. Are you going to want to buy the one that’s 60 bucks because it’s been discounted. So it’s more you think, so people have the same principle for a car that has access to the tax rather than one that does.

[00:59:24]Seth: SF says diesel in the UK costs around one quid 30, a liter car tax per year.

[00:59:29] Depends on CO2 three liter diesel engine could cost around 1500 per year in tax as an example. Yeah, you could tax it at the car, I guess as well. But you know, I think some people use our car a lot more than others, so it would be penalizing the people that didn’t. So how would you get the military off of oil?

[00:59:51] Well, you’d make electric tanks and planes.

[00:59:54] Fred: There’s a, there’s a, an officer in the U S army that contacted me last month. That is, is making a report on electrifying some sector of the military, right? Like he’s doing a study on it for the military. And he reached out to me about my opinions on a few things and Thanks.

[01:00:14] The rest things like, you know, there’s like there’s a way to do some things, not everything so far, but yeah, I mean, eventually like the tanks are going to be going to be electric and they’re going to deploy like a mega pack in the foreign base and with solar and they got to charge it like that in

[01:00:31] Seth: cyber trucks.

[01:00:32] Yeah, everywhere, cyber bullying.

[01:00:33] Fred: That was one thing. And the Joe Rogan interview too, that Joe Rogan suggested that they should make some for the military and the law says, yeah, maybe

[01:00:42] I’m

[01:00:42] Seth: sure. I’m sure there’s been a discussion. Leslie Faulkner says the idea of carbon tax came from British Columbia, Canada.

[01:00:48] Okay. I feel like that might’ve been you know, some economic economists, sprain,

[01:00:56] Fred: lot environmentalist in BC for sure. I don’t know the actual origin of the carbon tax. None. Right around for a while. I feel like it’s been

[01:01:03] Seth: like, yeah, since like the eighties, all right. Military is looking to make more EVs, but they need to make sure that the battery supply is not dependent on Asia.

[01:01:10] That’s a good point, but that’s good in like, Hey, diversify makes them better faculty. I

[01:01:15] Fred: mean, I’ve heard some rumors that the military has gone to war for the oils energy kick you. They go to war for some battery supply. Hmm.

[01:01:26] Seth: But. Tanks and aircraft won’t work on electric energy. That’s not true. Tanks can go electric aircraft could be hydrogen or whatever.

[01:01:35] Fred: I mean, that was another big discussion from Elan on the Jurgen dude, further aircraft. And he does, he does still believe that that 400 watt hour per kilogram at the pack level is sufficient to, to make an electric chair. He also said that he’s not going to work on it. And then he thinks his brain’s going to explode if he does.

[01:01:57] Oh,

[01:01:57] Seth: wow. No, I don’t want that. All right. Anton B says, hi guys. Congratulations for your weekly live. Always so interesting. Oh, that’s nice. Do you know the website and roads simulating the climate change depending on several parameters.

[01:02:10] Fred: That’s awesome. It’s scary

[01:02:11] Seth: to take a look at that. Elon Musk believes bill Gates had a big short, I mean, we talked about that.

[01:02:18] That’s

[01:02:18] Fred: really just. My headline.

[01:02:20] Seth: Really? Yeah. I wonder if this sec won’t investigate. I don’t think why would they, I mean,

[01:02:28] Fred: not that that’s a known thing. That’s market manipulation per se.

[01:02:33]Seth: Leslie Faulkner says the tenure bad on sales of for SK bad, make them pay a fine and move on with making batteries for Ford and VW.

[01:02:42] Oh

[01:02:42] Fred: yeah, we didn’t discuss that. That Leslie here is referencing the fact that we, we reported it when the lawsuit was first brought up by LG LG said that SK innovation, which is a South Korean manufacturer of batteries, which is just like LG Stole some trade secrets from LG, LG cam at the time now LG energy solution.

[01:03:01] And they were seeking for them in a law suit in the U S to ban them from importing. Sells into the U S and M and they want this week. Now, if you see a role for LG and they basically ban SK from importing cells into the U S and that apparently affected two specific vehicle programs, one being the Ford and one 50 electric, and the other being Volkswagen program, didn’t specify which one, but I assume it’s gonna be the ID for cars.

[01:03:30] I think it’s for vehicles that are built into the U S and they need to import cells from outside the us. So probably the visible you are the ID for it’s going to be built in the U S next year. But they did receive exemption for a, for a while. So four for four that’s, four years. Oh, if it’s starting now or for four years when they started production, I don’t know.

[01:03:52] And two years for Volkswagen, I don’t know why the difference on them, but maybe Volkswagen. Maybe that’s what they ask. Maybe that’s what Ford to ask. Like we need four years to be able to change battery manufacturer and lose logins. Like, I’ll do it in two, but yeah. They both, they both said that they were okay with the decision, so it’s not like it’s going to affect apparently the timeline, but it, it is definitely a problem.

[01:04:12] All right,

[01:04:13] Seth: Michael. Carrie Carrie asks any idea why it’s taking so long for the model S release would have expected. They were closer to delivery based on that early January retooling. My guess is Michael’s never retooled a auto line before. Cause it’s

[01:04:28] Fred: yeah, because the trivial complete contrary, I thought, I thought it was quick.

[01:04:31] I thought it was too quick with what was happening like that. That’s what we like when we, we, we were pretty certain, like we had a lot of sources that we were putting in indication that the Mo pneumo S was going to be released at the end of January. But then at the same time, I add sources in, in the production that was like, Oh, like, this is not ready.

[01:04:50] Like, this is gonna take a while, like two weeks, three weeks to retool. And, and then the, the you production line for the cause they have to use the new motors and everything. So they have the new production line and Gigafactory in Nevada, too. And that was just coming up, like late you various, something like that.

[01:05:07] So we were trying to like pull all the information together and something that makes sense, but then there’s like, ah, this is coming in a few weeks and I ended up all right. Well, now it’s been a few weeks and we haven’t seen them yet, but let’s give them a few more weeks, at least before panicking.

[01:05:24] Seth: All right.

[01:05:25]Have they started expanding Tesla, gigabit, Nevada yet?

[01:05:29] Fred: Not that we can see. I mean, there’s always new things happening inside the factory. I assume that Gary’s referencing though the, the actual space of the factory, the square meter. And no, we haven’t seen that happening. All right. Dan

[01:05:43] Seth: Howard is asking if we know any good lithium supply stocks and Chile for

[01:05:49] Fred: investment not in Chile specifically, but I can tell you all my, my, my, my lead some investment.

[01:05:55] And if you, if you want to know.

[01:05:59] Seth: All right. A huge Bitcoin farm in ocean Pauls British Columbia, clean hydrogen.

[01:06:05] Fred: Yeah. That’s that’s what I’m thinking. I think most of them will have to be running on renewable energy

[01:06:10] Seth: abandoned town with old hydro plants. So Bitcoin operator bought it. Oh.

[01:06:14] Fred: So they have their own hydro plant that they refurbished and yeah, I guess, I

[01:06:18] Seth: mean, wow, it’s weird that there’d be just like orphaned electricity.

[01:06:25]It looks like China and Tesla are the big dogs for lithium supplies.

[01:06:30] Fred: I don’t know. Tesla is no dog at all. I mean, I mean, it’s just a listen buyer, but not, not supply, like yeah. They want to be with that thing in Nevada apparently. But we haven’t heard much about, about prod pro progress on that.

[01:06:45] Seth: All right. Moving along here. Instead of region brainy, breaking, mining braking when your car needs to slow down in mines, Bitcoin,

[01:06:54] Fred: not sure about the logic here, Pablo, but I like your thinking

[01:06:58] Seth: a solar roof on the semi-trailers that, that does make sense on

[01:07:02] Fred: the sides. Yeah. I don’t know why that’s not happening.

[01:07:05]The trailer. It makes a lot of sense for me. That’s a lot of area I guess, I guess like you want, you want, Sollers the only thing that logically, that makes sense for me, that’s why it’s not happening or why it doesn’t put any indication towards that. Is that it’s you want your solar cells to be exposed to sunlight when every time there’s sunlight.

[01:07:27] And so if you put those solar cells in those places, there are a lot more valuable than places that when there’s sunlight there might not be. And that could be the case with trailers, for sure, because look trailers, they spend a lot of time on the road, on the road. They do have a high potential of being exposed to sunlight.

[01:07:45] That makes sense. But they also often docked on at distribution centers or at factories or whatever. And when they’re docked. Depending on the situation, often it is going to, it’s going to be shaded with, with the building next to it. So if you, when you spend a lot of time dark, it’s not, it’s not ideal.

[01:08:01] So it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s kind of sad that you have, you, you, you built a solar cell and it doesn’t get its full value because it’s putting on a place that doesn’t get sun all the time, or, I mean, there’s no place that gets on all the time, but you, you know what I mean? When there’s sunlight health,

[01:08:18] Seth: All right.

[01:08:18]We’re getting toward the end here. How do you think Tesla’s going to solve the dirty camera issue for robo taxis, especially the backup camera or writers going to be required to clean the cameras from time to time?

[01:08:29]Fred: No, I did. I discuss that on the podcast last week, I might have talked to my friends about it or something, and I’m thinking it was on the podcast, but this, this has been a big problem for me this winter.

[01:08:38] Like I, I don’t spend that many winter and get back. And now with the COVID I spent my winter cadets I’m driving my car, my Teslas. In the winter and I just cannot see this as full self-driving working in the winter and Quebec anymore. It’s just, there’s just no way, like, I always get an alert when I’m adding autopilot.

[01:08:56] Oh, this camera is like, it’s not clean anymore or is not clean. This camera is not clean. I’m like, eh, I’m not going to stop every few miles to just clean my car on my windshield. Let’s think right. You got me right in there. Can see where I can see. But I don’t need to see from like the fender on the side.

[01:09:12] Like I, I, my window is through your hair. And my, so in my view, like th the best solution for that would be, you have to have cameras. Like, if you want to be competitive with a human driver, you have to see the same thing as a human driver. I don’t have, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, like the camera do, but if, if, if it’s not clean anyway, it’s not a vintage.

[01:09:32] So you have to have like, maybe a camera on the, on the side mirrors. So that makes sense because that’s where I use to see where the, where the orthopod would see. But the thing in the fenders, they get, they get dirty all the time with the slush and everything that, that spins off from the cars and yeah.

[01:09:49] You

[01:09:49] Seth: know, something interesting. My Chevy bolt, Evie, and I’m sure other vehicles have this, but they had like a little squirter that would squirt the the rear view camera. You know, like, like the windshield wipers, so yeah.

[01:10:01] Fred: It’s quartz. And then D does it wipe it or it just let it dry?

[01:10:04] Seth: No, just shoots water at it.

[01:10:07] And it worked clean, cleaned off the camera. So

[01:10:11] Fred: yeah, I mean the rear view camera often you have to wipe it and then quite often, every time you drive in the winter, like the other way.

[01:10:19] Seth: All right. That’s pretty much it we’ve got a bunch of other conversations happening, but We can end it

[01:10:24] Fred: all right.

[01:10:24] Well, thanks a lot, everyone for listening. Thanks. Lawful watching. If you’re watching on YouTube on Facebook, you can give us a subscribe there. It’s always appreciated a Tom’s up to, and I’ll always help with the algorithm for some reason. And if you’re watching from a listening from a podcast app, you can give us a subscribe there to download the next episode, whenever it comes out which is always on Fridays.

[01:10:44]We are alive at 4:00 PM Eastern time. It’s going to be the same thing next week. So have a good one.

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