Podcast: Tesla Cybertruck Beta, Ford joins EV price war, Equinox EV, and more

if they can avoid it completely and just buy a car online, obviously I'm not saying the online experience is the only one, like I think Tesla Arabian and Lúcido, they need that physical location mainly for test drives, but the

price

aspect , and I know we've argued a lot about that, it's

price

as an issue lately, but the issue is different, at least like it's not, it's not the fact. that you can get a test at this price at this store Tesla another price this one is

more

about the fact that it varies so much as a whole uh but I would still prefer that to having to negotiate through a bunch of dealerships uh but yeah, and I think that Legacy automakers realize there's a big problem like, you know, we know North Star has the ending where you don't really have to deal with dealers.

Ford is making efforts to avoid dealers or at least. like doing the deal online so when you go to the dealer they can't surprise you or you can renegotiate things with you so they are working on it but that's just the dealers buying experience then you have the service experience and that's not something that's been viewed positively for third party dealerships either, actually it's probably the worst, eh, because a lot of dealerships, especially in the premium brands where Tesla operates, are known for overcharging and you go there and you order an oil change and then they find a bunch of stuff that they need to replace properly, and even if it's under warranty, well, it's not great, it's not a great business model for the automaker itself, so basically they give you gives Tesla an advantage of servicing its own vehicle under warranty at least even if you don't trust it as a consumer.

Well, you can trust Tesla to give itself the best deal and by doing so, you will make

more

profits. By being more profitable, you can have watermark margins or better costs for your customers and hopefully that, especially with this part of the price of EVs. We've been talking about it's going to solve the best cost for customers, so these are all things that give Tesla a huge advantage that will be difficult for these giant companies, especially the ones that are late. EV games like Toyota, uh, Conquest, to go to the consumer Conquest, really, but I think that was our last test with you, so for today we'll jump to non-Tesla news in a few minutes, but before That's a quick one. news about our sponsor SAE International and the wcx conference, okay this week's episode is sponsored by SE International, host of the wcx World Congress experience event for 2023, wcx will return to Detroit April 18-20 at Huntington Palace Huntington Place, sorry.

The largest mobility technical event in North America, wcx brings together thousands of engineering vendors and mobility professionals to exchange ideas, discuss current challenges, and build powerful relationships to advance their careers and the industry. Join the global mobile mobility community in the Motor City this April to stay up to date. to date on the latest technological advances participate in roundtables and network with the brightest minds in the industry gain a competitive advantage and meet the people shaping the future of mobility visit wcx.sae.org to register now great, thanks SAE for sponsoring On this week's show, we have some more news to discuss and then we'll jump into the comments section, so I see there are a lot of questions today.

We appreciate those. I can answer them in a few minutes if you have more. I'm going to have time, so for more, you can put it in the comments section, whether you're listening on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you're watching, uh, no, we don't accept, we wish we didn't see the questions we are. doing here never mind Lincoln and um oh yeah, if you enjoy the show, please give us a thumbs up right now, that helps us show more than you can think of and it takes a second and it's free. You can subscribe and get a notification for the next time we go live that will also be very helpful and if you're listening to your

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Okay, let's get back to it. The ionic six are coming soon. The EPA range was revealed ahead of launch and, um, the efficiency that we've been getting used to from Hyundai so far and Kia is impressive. Their rivals, in reality, are the furry Lucid. Much more premium vehicle and okay let's get into the details real quick here so again that's what I also like about Hyundai and the ionic series is the trims because they give you a bunch of different trims like you had all the options you need. You can have all-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, long range, short range in all different powertrains.

In this case, they also give us the wheel size, which we know greatly affects efficiency, so this is from the back. 18-inch wheel drive option and the long-range battery pack 361 miles EPA rating and uh mp uh miles per gallon equivalent to 140 uh, that's it, yeah, that's uh Top Notch really impressive, yeah Top Notch very good, it doesn't get any better than this and then you have the ionic six uh all wheel drive again with the long range and the 18 inch wheels so with the all wheel drive version you lose some efficiency compared to the rear wheel drive , yeah, a decent amount, you dropped 120 versus 140.

Yeah, that was an open 35 mile difference, uh, pretty significant, so you can have the um, what do we call it scl? So I guess it's like the standard battery pack version, oh no I think it's just a premium pack. the 18 inch and then that's fine but can they all be the same battery pack? Yes I think they are all the same battery pack, they don't have the small battery pack like the ion head so just the deluxe pack and the twin with 20 inch wheels will reduce the range from 361 to 305. Yes that it was a little surprising to me, it's a big drop, 117 MPG, which is 140 uh, then the all wheel drive version dropped it to 70 miles of range.

Crazy 100 MPG, that's bad, that's pretty crazy, they range from amazing to bad efficiency, uh, 20 inch wheels with all-wheel drive, because 121 on the long-range 18-inch wheels with all-wheel drive, that's actually decent , that's pretty good, then. you have the limited version Rebel Drive with 20 inch 305 reel which has to be right, no no it has to be different, yes there has to be different packages in there because look it's the same as the other 20. You're right. right you're right sorry I missed it I read that one so 305 basically same range same efficiency with the limited so the limited has to be like a badge basically or something which is usually the case, when will this come? at the dealership uh starting this spring you'll see the ionic six, which is a little bit more of a controversial design for Samsung.

I love it, I think it's even better than the ionic 5, I think and I love it. the inf5 design yeah, I like it too, but some people are just hung up on that back hand. I don't know, I like it, it's like, you know, Porsche Porsche Vibes, maybe something like Citroen, okay, that's a deep cut right there, yeah, sorry, okay, we made fun of it in the last episode, but now my key price cuts are officially available, so they have to do it right, they tell you they don't have to do it, they tell you yes.

We are doing it because they are increasing production and all that, but as we know, car manufacturers sell cars as much as they can sell them on the market, that is how capitalist society will live, but if you are to believe what Ford says they are replicas of production that we had. I think I put the numbers in there, so they delivered just under 40,000 units last year, but they have a total capacity of 80,000 units globally and they want to increase that to 130,000 units per year by the end of the year, so it's a big increase so it will happen with pricing but for the most part I think they are trying to compete with the model and big price cuts on the model.

And to be fair, the price drops a little less, but it's still significant, so the big one is the extended range version, the premium one, yeah that makes sense, well, the extended range battery pack he obtained a price of sixteen hundred dollars. guide, so any model you want to have the extended range is 60 100 less, but the big price The cuts come from the California route, for example, a version with all-wheel drive, extended battery pack, I think it's the version of greatest reach they have. Let's see, a 5,500 price cut now starts at 58,000. Basically, the new prices start at forty-six thousand dollars and go up to sixty-four thousand dollars and obviously not everyone is eligible for the 7,500 tax credit at least until In March, then we'll have to see with the new battery guide how Ford meets those battery material requirements that, uh, I have some concern for Ford, now we'll see, maybe you'll see the tax rate that goes from 7500. to 37. .50, but yeah, if you're looking for a Mac key, I think right now is probably a good time to buy before March, I'm just guessing I don't know exactly if you or maybe Ford doesn't either.

This point, still at Ford, some comment from the CEO about the next generation EV truck, so as soon as Ford lined up, they were clear that this is very much their first attempt at making an electric truck and that the next one is on March. It will be like a big step forward with the new platform and also with the new production capacity, like all these new ones, like the Ford oval and these new giant factories that they are building, the volume will come with the next generation truck. truck and um so Mr. Farley said we're deep, we're deep, we're deep into the development of our second generation EVS, including our next generation full-size electric pickup truck, the CV will be fully upgradable by software, which means a completely new electrical architecture and they are going to be radically simplified, imagine three body styles, each with a volume potential of up to a million units, just a handful of combinations that can be ordered, as well that basically it's easy to talk about electrifying the Ford truck line because that's what the truck line is like, like the F-150, they have a lot of different configurations, the 250, the 350 and all that, and they all have a capacity extremely high production in the millions, well, each and around a million, I should say, so it's basically saying that you'll see that available in a cigar.

EV platform and was there a timeline? If I remember correctly, it's like 2025, with the goal of this new platform, did you update that timeline? I don't think so, no, I think it's still 20 25. Yes, 2025 is when the new platform fully arrives. The software can also be updated, that's good and we know that Ford needs to work a lot on that because a lot of automakers have promised that, just like Volkswagen has done, obviously, some as established automakers, I should say, the startup intelligent. You better wait for this, but they are not a software company and Volkswagen has proven that time and time again, where you know the infotainment is maybe upgradeable and all that, but then when you need to do a powertrain upgrade through of a software update, it is.

It's not the easiest thing in the world. I mean, remember how both EVs also promised that it will be completely software upgradeable and then you have to download it and update it on the USB stick and plug it into your car and all that and that's it? Like, what am I doing now? I know it's very strange and to this day it's still not fully software upgradable like eight years later, yeah, yeah, you know, Farley actually at the Christmas event, or at the Christmas event, he was like, hey, I just came back from the development labs and we saw a car completely update all of its software including the engine computer and everything else so this was like you knew about a month ago so it's the first time Ford has done this.

I was excited about it, like, it was like the first time in development that they did it, so yeah, it's pretty new for them, yeah, when Tesla's been doing it since 2012. That's, yeah, it's kind of crazy. , okay, um, Rivian, some bad news, wow. bad news actually probably some good news, some bad news for a few hundred people, maybe a thousand people, is that a new wave of layoffs has been announced this week amid serious concerns about the causes, so the engine of the CEO RJ's car about that six percent of the workforce is going to be laid off in the coming weeks, in an attempt to control costs and that's something we've been talking to Rivian about for a while, now we need to see