Refreshed Porsche Taycan DC Charges Like A Beast, GM Plans To Revive Plug-In Hybrids

Refreshed Porsche Taycan DC Charges Like A Beast, GM Plans To Revive Plug-In Hybrids

The batteries included podcast is brought to you with United Chargers United Chargers presents the grizzly range of EV chargers there’s the original Grizzly classic a powerful heavyduty portable EV charging station built to withstand the toughest conditions the grizzly Duo a dual Port unit designed to charge two vehicles at

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To 40 amps that’s 9.6 KW plus the IP67 rated built in Canada with the highest quality materials order yours now at United chargers.com that’s United chargers.com hello welcome to the batteries included podcast it’s February the 2nd 2024 and this is episode number 22 thank you very much for joining us

On today’s show we’ll be talking about charging the refreshed Porsche tyon general motor decision to bring back plug-in hybrids and Ford confirms Knack adapter is coming free to owners this spring and of course much much more I’m Dominic Yoni join us today is the eoent Mr Tom mogy senior editor at inside EVs

And host of the YouTube channel state of charge we also have the measured Mr Martin Lee from the E News Daily podcast which is available on all the best podcast podcast platforms and of course Kyle Connor joins us from the Majestic practically palacial Halls of autospec Studios where

He produces high voltage videos for a number of YouTube channels hi there everybody morning good to see you all good morning so uh I guess let’s take a look at what’s been happening this week and kick this show off with the EV News Daily weekly reporting Roundup think it away

Martin well the Ford CEO Jim Farley announced that the Ford EV Tesla adapter will be sent free of charge to owners of the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mac e which will enable those models with the CCS plugs to use Tesla’s North American charging standard charges eligibility for the adapter will be determined by

VIN and each customer will receive one adapter customers get their adapter via a reservation process Ford will cover the cost of shipping uh details on how to reserve them and the tech specs not yet shared but the activation the charging and the payment process we do know will be done seamlessly they say

Through Ford pass or in vehicle Smart introduced a new Pro speec of their electric crossover here in the UK the smart number one which means the entry price is down by 5 grand starts at$ 319.50 for almost 200 Mi of range much like the bz 4X the Subaru saltera has

Got its 2024 model year improvements they’re gradually improving the charging time 80% now 35 minutes uh compared to an hour previously and much better battery conditioning which means you can charge it in the cold well the median range for EVS in 2023 is now 270 mil that is a 13m increase on the

Previous year Tesla plans to release a new model 3 Performance configuration no surprise because it’s currently not on sale it was removed from the lineup at least in the US earlier this year everywhere else they got the Highland so-called Highland version had the performance deleted at the same time

Tesla’s Martin via commenting online that the new configuration is coming but didn’t give us a date Apple’s VP of Hardware engineering left to join rivan he was a member a key member of the Apple team having been there for 25 years byd announced the European launch

Of their five-seater SUV the seal U it’s launching in February based on the E platform 3 lfp cells 800 volts AR architecture Kia plans to launch their EVS now in sequential order which is good for simpletons like me it’ll now be EV3 ev4 ev5 they were going to bring the

Four first however uh the the next three numbers will cover price points from 35,000 to 50,000 us Japanese officials conducted a raid on a Toyota plant a Toyota Affiliated plant after the company admitted to cheating on engine testing AKO Toyota the chair apologized for the Scandal and

Vowed to steer the company out of it CEO COI sat apologizing for the combustion testing Scandal now engulfing the company whilst data this week revealed they fell further behind the rest of the industry with electrified sales just 0.92% of their business General Motors plans to add plug-in hybrids to the

North American lineup according to the CEO Mary barer during the automaker’s earnings call which was a a good financially a good earnings call the company had doing very well uh she said that deploying a plug-in hybrid technology will deliver environmental benefits over EVS while the US builds out its charging

Network used to have plug-in hybrids didn’t you GM good no details released by the way on when we get them what they’ll be any kind of specs or whether that work has even begun that’s a long development cycle that can take many years to bring new vehicles to Market have they got

Something they can just Plug and Play I don’t think so right in December last year plug-in sales in France reached a new record of 54,000 a half units mostly thanks to battery electric vehicles bevs were 70% of the plug-in vehicle share in December where it’s now 30% of all new

Passenger cars sold things are flying in France Tesla upgrading the model Y in China with Hardware 4.0 with a self-driving computer capable of seeing greater distances and five times the computing power and trucks of North America Navistar and Volvo group of North America formed a coalition called powering America’s commercial

Transportation to accelerate the construction of a national charging infrastructure Network for medium and heavyduty trucks very important work they’re doing there that is your update for what’s happened this week Dom it’s back to You all right how’s that hey uh Tom can you hear me okay now I can hear you sound a little bit better now you’re a little l for oh okay U it was set for uh yeah it said to do it automatically but I I changed it manually but anyway

Speaking of Tom and I don’t know something um I believe we have a you have a little bit of a giveaway uh setup to talk about this morning sure yeah so a couple weeks ago I mentioned that we were going to be giving away a Emporia

Charger and I uh asked the followers to email me and uh tell me me why this is uh something that you need and also show proof that you subscribe to uh batteries included here so um I got over 200 emails and uh I read through all of them

With the help of my wife and uh I took it down to 10 finalists 10 names are on these pieces of paper here what I’m going to do is pick one of them and then I will email you um and we’ll set up an arrangement for delivery now this is for

An important Ora 48 amp charger and I said you can have the option of getting it with j1772 or the KNX connector either one that’s your choice so let’s uh check it out right now we need some music some some draw music didn’t think about that did we we we’ll set that

Up okay and the winner is Thomas derkowski W congrat ulations so Tom we had that in the system I love it so Tom I will uh send you an email and we’ll set up uh delivery you got to tell me which one you want I don’t know if you’re in the

Uh uh chat room here today I don’t see your name but you could have a different uh screen name and uh we’ll uh we’ll get you out your Emporia charger as soon as possible uh we’re going to be doing these frequently here my goal is to

Maybe do this once a month so um that’s the J January giveaway the February giveaway is going to be a Grizzly charger our Channel sponsor here so um I’ll let you guys know when when you should start sending me emails don’t do it yet because I want to try to have

Only two weeks of emails to go through and not like a month like I did last time and uh you know um you know this is a there’s an honor System here be honest tell me what your situation is and why you you would like to get one you know

I’ I um I had such a wide spectrum of people telling me what their situation was but quite honestly and I appreciate all the followers but like one follower has a lucid air and he got uh uh finally took delivery of his GM uh Hummer EV so

It’s like it’s hard for me to give somebody a free charger when they’ve got $220,000 worth the EVS in their garage and they’re like yeah uh you know I need I need a second one for the Hummer e and um you know I I I love everybody but I

Really tried to pick people that need it like I’ve got I got emails from I’m a disabled vet I saved my money I finally bought a used 2017 Chevy Bolta EV I’ve been charging on 120 for the last you know 6 months so you know that that you

Know those are the people that I’m really looking to help out with this and as I said I appreciate everybody but be honest when you send me your emails don’t make up a a story this is kind of like an honor System thing here but um

I’ll be getting uh that charger out to Tom I’ll send you an email let me know which one you want and uh then we’ll start one uh for for next week we’ll um next week next month we’ll do a Grizzly and we’ll try to keep it rolling all

Year long with a charger a month all right looks like we lost Martin there he’s uh I think his uh this connection gave up the ghost for a moment but he’ll be back um let’s see so the Porsche tyon is getting a refresh and Kyle here has

Driven the car and charged it up and I believe maybe even plotted the curve I’m not sure we’ll find out I guess so Kyle I’ve got the feeling you’re pretty excited about this refresh uh the tyan is already one of the best EVS out there so what has Porsche done to improve this

Car well I can’t tell you can’t tell you anything about it I can only tell you range and charging and I can’t tell you all the details for another week okay so a little bit less than a week only five days or so oh next Friday we’ll we’ll

We’ll have the dets but I can tell you about the charging because the charging is crazy I can tell you you that it it goes it’s crazy it’s the most insane thing I’ve ever charged truly the most insane thing I’ve ever charged so you than h v well on a battery level

Absolutely for the amount of range that you get yeah and the curve is amazing I’ve never seen a curve like this I can’t tell you exact battery capacity but I can guess based off of all my numbers yesterday it’s in the high 90 kilowatt hour usable range

It’s very weird restrictions on what I can and can’t say but I can tell you I did a range test in it yesterday and it was pouring rain absolute garbage conditions which is why my video was supposed to go up today along with everyone else’s but we had like the most

I mean we were just a boat driving through water all day it was crazy so I have the keys right here to a prototype big battery rear wheel drive tyon and I’m going to go try and get 400 miles out of it today um so that really yeah

Miles my goal it’s not going to be a standardized 70 mph range test we’re going to have three people in the car but we’re going to go for let’s just see if we just drive it gently not you know 40 miles an hour holding up traffic but

Just drive it gently can we get you know chasing 400 in the tyon and uh all the Porsche Engineers were running simulations last night like is this possible on the rout and the yes it’s going to be close but we’re talking a lot more range from the previous car I

Think we can be pretty clear uh a lot more than the previous car and then the charging performance is it’s just crazy really the most insane thing I’ve ever experienced it will Peak at 335 is kilowatts delivered to the car that’s the the peak it goes about 320 a

Little bit more than that into the battery uh and then of course AC loads kick on and it compensates from the charger for those but Peak doesn’t matter and Tom knows this and you guys know this it’s all about the curve and it dips you come under 300 kilowatts so

From zero to when you come under 300 kilowatts is at 65% so it’s just it just rockets and I added over 74 kilowatt hours in 15 minutes to the car o I mean it’s it’s going to be the new king of 10% challenge it’s going to be

The new king of Cannonball it’s the craziest charging I’ve ever experienced so you you there’s no reason you know old ton from 3 to 47% would give you full send 270 kilowatts and it would ramp up because it was current limited now we have a little bit higher voltage

We have a 400 amp request from the charger now and it just sits flat out from 0 to 65 nice so get ready for craziness I have the curb filmed uh um I I have it Ryan’s going to go put it on the website this morning I literally did everything

Last night um so I was the last group who got to go and come and test these cars so um you know you’ll see some of the other outlets have some range stuff but none of it is standardized range testing as far as I can tell none of it’s representative it’s just someone

Drove a car in some way I don’t really like these types of range things you know Porsche of course we’re you know they I think they respect a lot of the out of spec coverage they’re trying to get us a car to Colorado as soon as

Possible on the arrows to do the the real test that we can compare against other cars so um yeah this was the most insane yeah it’s just it’s it’s so next level the charging what charger did you put it on last night uh we used just an Electrify

America BTC unit a new one um you know it was one of the paired units we blocked the other pair so we could get a good curve and you know I went zero to 100 and had a little bit of thermal limit so instead of 65% I tapered at

62% um under 300 kilowatts but today I’m going to charge it again and fill in the rest of that curve so I can get a pretty good uh indication I mean the the yeah this is just I’ve never charged I’ve seen cars that like Lucid has Peaks at

351 kilowatts I’ve seen Hummer EV it’s 377 I’ve seen now like they really get up there but this I’ve never seen anything just sit for over 12 minutes o over 300 kilowatts did you charge the Maan when you had it yes and are you allowed to talk about that yeah I never

Know what we remember if I did I I have charged it um but it’s um not not like this that’s for sure it’s a pretty good curve it’s 270 kilowatts Peak and it holds deep yeah two 270 was what the what the pre the tyon does now right PE

So that’s what the tyon does now and the small yeah you’ll see all the technical Det details later this week but we we can be sure that this is going to be just a whole another another League not even in the same category so what do you think if people

Are driving like on a regular road trip and you’re doing like a you know 2% to 80% you know on the regular what how how long do you think a stop at a you know on a road trip is going to be like okay

Let me pull up the data so when I did my road trip in like my test of model 3 uh long range rear wheel drive 2018 my average turned out to be like 19 minutes over like 3,000 some miles um and it was a bit longer than it actually would be

Because a few of those sessions were uh yeah you charge really deep yeah most like you I think like the 10 to 80 is really more important very few GNA go down to 2% right right right keep in mind it’s got we can assume a much

Bigger battery than before so 10 to 80 is adding a lot more energy than the previous car um and so we 10 to 80 is about um 16 minutes so I forget the it’s not the official quoted stated time but that’s what I’ve observed is in that

Region it was it was better than what Porsche will quote because I saw eight 8 to 77 I have or 8 to 79 in 16 minutes so maybe even better than I quoted wow that’s nuts that’s just and the funny thing is you know when Kyle’s talking about this before he even said

Cannonball I’m thinking cannibal but kyl has told me that’s it I’m done with cannibals I’m not doing cannibals anymore and and that’s what he said I don’t I don’t believe him for as far as I can throw him this car he’s going to be drooling over getting this car Coast

To coasts now that’s just my prediction um but uh you we’ll see a real fight between lucid and this because Lucid uh I need what would be cool is if I could have a lucid today to run alongside this tyon because I’m sure the Lucid is more efficient they are

Magically efficient but I’m also really sure that the tyon can on board so much more energy um yeah it’s it’s gonna this is great that cars are getting to this point but we’re getting into the you know Mac you know minimum road trip time with this based off the the range that I

Observed yesterday in the worst of conditions beating the previous car and um today having looking like fairly good conditions behind me I’m I’m hoping for 400 miles with three with three people in the car great crazy wow but not at 70 miles now so what do you have can you

Have a guesstimate of what you think it will do under normal conditions on your regular 70 M hour test route yeah my guess in Colorado if we have a reasonably fresh car is it’s not not going to be Lucid territory we’re talking uh maybe mid 300s Okay so

The the previous tyon longrange rear wheel drive both Tom and I tested and we got roughly 300 miles out of that car at 70 I think this is a 350 360 car at 70 big upgrade adding 50 miles at highway speeds and Charing faster that’s a that I know but if if it

Comes in anywhere 340 to 3 to to 360 anywhere in there adding 40 or 50 miles and shaving 10 minutes off of a charging speed you know to to to go further that’s ridiculous that’s just um that’s awesome good good on Porsche should be improving their cars

Like this you know I had I spent the last two days with the entire engineering team for tyon talking about all the little so I’m you know my I’m full of information which is great so I know all the answers to all my questions and that’s the that’s the most

Invaluable thing about uh you know being able to have access to these folks you know was something I only found out about last minute I was list you know I was I was up in uh doing Honda prologue and then I’m like oh tyon range test go

Let let me pop down there and uh that’s what we did it was great yeah and uh I can’t talk about the chemistry changes EV KX I know wants to know but just wait a few days and I can tell you everything you want to know okay there’s chemistry

Changes though you say no I’m not confirming chemistry changes no but there but there has to be significant improvements in how they fundamentally put this thing together so which is which I find it interesting because we have the new platform with Mancan and q6 rron which I thought was going to steal

All of the headlines and then we come on air today and we hear about this incredible tyon which is an improvement on a product that’s already out there and by the sounds of it a massive Improvement um or at least a labor of love for those Engineers that have got

To do this um amazing so a few uh about a month or so ago uh Porsche set a a new record on the on nurburging with tyon this is not that car right though is there is that should we expect that kind of like crazy performance of the tyon

Refresh or is what’s the can we talk about anything about that not till five more days nothing on the crazy spicy one that you and I want to know about that that’s not uh yeah not not part of my program at least so how did you so is everyone

Uh other outlets down there doing range tests like what’s what talk about yeah it’s so funny there’s yeah I think they had maybe it’s a global thing they have here so the they had some German guys here they had the Norwegian guys here they had um yeah some American you know Edmonds posted

Their stuff I think they had a car and driver a motor Tren all the big you know normal ones and everyone’s got their own version of how to test range and um yeah I actually was with Patrick George who runs inside EVS yesterday we had a great

Time but you know everyone has a different calculation of what is range and what does it mean and and at least between Tom and I we have a very strict understanding of how we conduct range tests so that it is comparable I’ve seen

A lot of people be like oh I did this in the tyon I remember you know a few years ago I did that in an eqs and you know I’m like you can’t this isn’t how this works even um even comparing on our testing on different temperature days and different elevations drives me

Insane and wind well wind is so such a huge Factor yeah such a huge we go in Loops to try to offset that but if one day there’s 16 M hour winds with one car and the next day you go out and it’s three M hour

Winds even with the loops it’s you know it’s uh you know but we we we we fully explain that every time we do these so I think we do the best honestly it’s not just saying because it’s me and you I think we do the best most controlled

Range tests of anybody out there so yeah ABS I think so no question I totally agree because we’re not trying to show a customer use case we’re trying to show comparability and that’s the goal you know that we’re trying to achieve here nobody just drives 70 miles an hour you

Know like nobody gets on a highway and just drives 70 miles an hour because like that like normally if you tried to drive 70 miles you would slow up and speed up as traffic but Kyle and I like Dodge cars and everything so that we can

Maintain that 70 M hour you know and and like it’s like it’s work sometimes I may maybe more than Kyle Kyle you get some of your roads I see when you’re when I when you live stream you’re just blasting along like I’m here in New Jersey I’m like weaving cars and

Everything to stay at 70 miles an hour yeah no I I I do them in the middle of nowhere because we’re able to which is great but but no question this is a this is a no matter I think we can say comfortably the new tyon with the big

Battery no matter the conditions it’s a 300 mile car middle of winter driving over about a lot of cars right no yeah it’s true that’s but I would say the Lucid as an example a lucid Grand Touring I would always say was a 400

Mile car that had a a you know fourth it did better than 400 in our 70 mile per hour test but kind of no matter how I drove that car as long as I was reasonable I wasn’t shredding Canyons that’s a 400 mile car this is a 300 mile

Car um but no question the charging that I observed here is far superior to the Lucid so then it becomes you know I’m not sure if people are really cross shopping tyon and Lucid but it this is the fun stuff we get to play around with

So John cze has a question when you range test do you stop for snacks and bathroom breaks no me no I don’t stop I I try not to I might have to stop for the bathroom break once in a while I haven’t recently I did when I first

Started doing these but one thing I drive on the New Jersey Turnpike the rest stops are right on the turnpike I literally Coast off the the highway a quar mile shut Park shut the car off and then turn it on and get back on the

Parway so it I mean it it might make a quarter of a mile difference at the end of the range test so but but very rarely only with the really long cars like when I did the Lucid air I had to it was in I was driving for eight hours know so I

Mean that was nuts but you’re Superman what’s that yeah you’re not you’re not Superman no and I ain’t getting any younger so the bathroom breaks seem to be happening more frequently these recent of recent years uh oh all right um yeah so well let’s just move on but

That’s wait for another week to but the big story for me today at least is the charging performance more than the range the range that I experienced was in the absolute worst conditions other outlets had better conditions I heard of some people on the loop getting uh mid 360

Mile ranges cruising at highway speeds at least going from LA to San Diego and back so yeah it’ll be nice to see more more cars get up in that range thing I mean people say we don’t need that kind of range but kind of do for a lot of

People do need that kind of range you know just so they can just go and fill up the car like once a once a week like a normal like a gas car ah that would suck if you have to drive an EV that way though I mean well that’s just I mean

Yeah just the way if some of people like really like driving EVs and they don’t have a driveway that’s kind of how what they’re stuck with right yeah but then it’s such a pain every week you have to fight like around here in La you can’t find open Chargers

You don’t buy a tyon if you don’t have a garage yeah don’t buy one of these if you don’t have a garage kind of money ton owners probably have a garage anyway or is a driveway you think cars or condo um parking lot with a with a receptacle I whatever so you

Mentioned you also drove the Prue can you say anything about that yet yeah I can tell you everything about how it how it does not drive because I can’t tell you that but I can tell you everything else well I mean we can save a lot of

For later because we got lots other things to talk about but uh Curious this is kind of like so this is uh the Honda prologue is based on the LTM system from GM and GM is having all kinds of issues with their LTM plat architecture in other vehicles like the Blazers out a

Stop sale um some lyric owners you know complain about this and that some having issues so what’s the prologue is any of that coming over to the prolog or it all seem to be I don’t know how much you can’t tell or can you say how much uh

The software engineers at Honda have had their fingers in the AL team sauce yeah well I spent a lot of time in my video review talking about this exact conundrum and it’s really concerning to me that a brand has partnered with a company that seemingly can’t get electric cars out for themselves and

Honda is so confident in the fact that they can get every single one they need from GF they they say 40,000 in the first year or something like that so so um it’s literally a blazer with a Honda bat I mean l it has OnStar it’s yeah yeah it’s literally a

Blazer yeah um it was really is it colon star yeah okay for some reason I was thinking I thought Honda like took those kind of systems and kind of put their own marketing labels on them and no they just kept it all GM and I think I can

Say this because it’s not a driving impression when you turn traction control off it says stabilit track off okay which is GM nomenclature so lots of GM software they’ve added carplay so they’ve done some tweaking somewhere but not much yeah well well I think they the system the base system allows carplay in

Android auto okay okay so so GM decision that was a decision to turn it off and to disable access even though it has it okay I didn’t know that yeah yeah yeah because both this and the Acura ZDX have carplay and Android auto brilliant okay but but I’ve I’ve learned

Quite I I really don’t know if it’s worth spending any time on this card because I’m not so sure it’s interesting yeah no we can we can move on uh because we’ll we’ll talk about this when the Embargo drops in in a month it’s in forever and I I want to

Just forget about it but I can’t that b well um all right no I mean no it’s not it’s not I’m not saying it’s a bad car I actually think it looks great the materials are very nice um I prefer it just on a styling you know non-driving Impressions because I

Haven’t driven the Blazer but I prefer it to the Blazer um so that this would be my preference if I had to uh choose yeah right and so uh David Lutz is asking us I’m curious to hear if Francy was able to make it cross country

In vinfast and I am too curious as because I didn’t even even know where that road trip was headed you know I I knew that she was with Jordan headed somewhere this is what happens when you get off of Twitter you miss out all the

Info I know we need to get you all on threads no no no just just use use x um all right so so to bring our audience up to speed outpec has leased a vinfast vf8 and Francy is I guess the prime driver of that vehicle now and she

She’s taking delivery how did that go like the so you’ve leased it was that difficult to arrange yes it sucked um so can you give us a little yeah I mean we did a whole video it’s it’s basically we went to the the the only non-corporate owned vinfast dealer in

The country is in Raleigh North Carolina where I used to live and so it was great to go back home and see everyone and uh you know hang out in North Carolina but I was there way longer than I expected because you know I had emailed and

Called them ahead of time said hey we’re coming we’re Serv us a red one because I wanted it for the thumbnail or I really wanted an orange one they sold that and I said H they got a couple red ones save one of those for us we’re on our way and

So I thought okay I called up Francy she needs an electric car I don’t want to drive a VIN fast that’s for sure so anyway I but I want to cover the car so I said okay I’ll get you a a free vinfast basically you know thanks for

Working for us here’s a you know don’t sell your Subaru but here’s a free VIN Fest so we decided to May either just meetting Raleigh and drive it back but then I thought oh well she you know is in Memphis so I thought let’s go to

Memphis we’ll grab a model y this is her parents model y we’ll drive it out to Raleigh which was a disaster because we got a flat tire and all that stuff in itself and then we get to Raleigh in the model Y where we’re planning on just

Road tripping them back the same day and the Dealer’s like oh we sorry we sold all the cars you we don’t I’m like we just came all the way here we had it arranged what are you talking about this is crazy then it turns out they were just

Lying to us they didn’t sell all of the cars they had a software update bug that was stopping them from being on sale and so there was a stop sale they weren’t delivering anymore and I’m like that you could have just told us that and we

Wouldn’t have flown all the way here and then they’re like oh we thought you were coming here to see friends we didn’t know you were coming here for us blah blah blah like yeah we came all the way just to get your stupid ass car so we

Can get home and it was awful terrible experience and so you know that Thursday delivery turned into a Friday delivery which turned into a Saturday delivery which then their closed Sunday turned into a Monday delivery and it was just lie after lie after lie after delay

After delay and it was so infuriating um dealing with these people at leth vinfast I mean truly deceptive everything the people we spoke to were trying to be as honest as possible it was like the bosses trying to protect vinfast image I don’t know anyway they basically didn’t want maybe expect to

Have the car I don’t think that because they weren’t just doing it to us they wanted us out of there because everyone in the showroom I’m sitting in the showroom for days and they’re like oh you know what do you think about this I’m like it’s a terrible car why would you

Buy so they wanted us the heck out of there and I said I’m only leaving until you sell us a car so yeah finally at like the last moment they agreed to sell us this thing but it was cool because I didn’t want them like prepping a car or

Doing anything so I switched the car at the last second it came off the truck uh you know just a couple hours before we took delivery said oh we don’t want ready anymore we’ll take that green one and that’s the one we’re having so we have a real customer I didn’t want any

Funny not that I think they would do that I think you know at least Le the dealer group it’s it’s a great dealer group it’s just new vinfast store new processes really not sorted yet but it’s early days for them they’ve only been doing it for a month I think um and then

They said okay but we still have this stop sale we can’t deliver you the car I thought but but we’re here and and so I I said to them to the management I basically said you can get a video that we’re going to film right now that says

Vinfast will not sell us a car and that will make a great story I’m happy with that and we’ll move on because you’re not selling us a car or you can sell us a car and if it’s garbage that doesn’t reflect on Le that reflects on vinfast

So they agreed and they saidif you can drive it for 10 miles the one we’re taking delivery just take it around the block 10 miles if it doesn’t break down or explode their terminology then you can take delivery and I thought this really is great confidence in your

Product so I drove it so gently for the 10 miles I wanted this thing so I didn’t cause anything it didn’t touch any software and we drove it 25 miles actually because I went okay couple exits up the highway tried the lane centering that worked well a really good

Driver assistance actually it’s done by ZF surprisingly nice um okay and it didn’t break they sold us the car in an hour and a half we were out of there and I had to fly home uh between that time period the software completely locked up the car wouldn’t shut off it wouldn’t

Char wouldn’t do anything within the first 30 miles on the odometer I mean it just really went completely blank but this is not indicative of the experience Francy had on her road trip which I thought was really interesting she did a hard a soft reset on the vehicle you hold the power

Button and honestly as far as I’ve heard over the last few days yeah there have been bugs there’s been little weird things every time they charge it they say the battery’s overheating which it’s not okay so I don’t know but um as far as I can tell the car actually was not

Great it was buggy but it made it back to Memphis without major issue it charges acceptably well not not good I would never say good but it’s got an you know it’s not a bolt way better than bolt better than Nero better than Kona electric and it’s again only the

Advertis lease rate was $250 a month zero down I paid a lot more than that Colorado we got a color all these things whatever I just needed the car for Content I don’t even know if they overcharged us or not I don’t care um you know it’s not like it was that

Expensive but um yeah then and they made it Francy made it back to uh to i’ I’ve haven’t spoken to her I’ve just been following her Twitter account right yeah I’m curious so is she filming a video of this trip back yeah her and Jordan because Jordan flew in to take the model

Y so they did model Y versus vinfast on the way back okay right on I guess we’re in Toronto as well John lamb shares that they’ve seen five on the road in the past few months that’s interesting I haven’t seen any here at all yet of

Course I’m in tassi Florida it’s not the uh the EV me for sure um so that’s going to be interesting to follow uh follow this experience this ownership experience uh to see what they get right and what they get wrong what happens what goes wrong what goes right uh yeah

But what on this trip also you you came across a uh you went to Herz to rent a vehicle at some point I think maybe after you flew to here and you found a Herz that is renting out the Silverado EV yep and you rented a couple them yeah

Well they had a bunch of silver they had maybe eight Silverado EVS okay and apparently LAX has Silverado EVs and other places so Herz must have done a big order we also heard of what was it 600 Silver Auto EVS being delivered to calr didn’t we report on that I didn’t

But no I think we did a couple shows mened that uh two weeks ago oh oh okay it’s been a while sorry my short memory yeah so um yep that was cool so yeah I had a a Silverado EV 3 WT which as far as I can

Guess is somewhere around 180 KW hour usable pack um so it’s the medium one not the not the big boy um yeah because the big one’s 213 214 usable right right right there’s three there’s three battery sizes in in the Silverado it’s been a while I don’t remember no four I

Think it’s one two three and four WT that you can choose in the work truck so you can choose a single a double a bigger double or a real big boy hum V siiz battery okay so uh I mean you’ve been in the in the Silverado before so I guess

You’re familiar with how it works any any surprises or anything of note yeah I mean you know this was the base this is a work truck spec so it doesn’t have heated seats the seat doesn’t even go up and down like it is stripped okay but it’s such a nice riding comfortable

Vehicle um with you know adaptive cruise and a base truck is nice and huge range I could not do a charging test I had the thing for to drive from San Francisco up to you know somoma County because I went for the Honda prologue thing and I I

Don’t know I hate riding in the little shuttles that sometimes automakers provide and then you gota like talk to someone about not that’s not a car Enthusiast I don’t know how to do that so I was like I’ll just rent a Silverado when I got off the plane I’ll drive

Myself up there and um yeah it was great I mean truly it was it was really fun so I ripped it up there I told the the folks like don’t plug it in I just wanted it dead so my plan was on the way to the airport to do a a charging test

And I could I ran out of time I could not drain the battery it has so much range even when I’m Full Throttle neutral brakes it’s a rental car I was driving it like one I mean I would I had this thing full sideways around corners

It was awesome I was the first one to rent it I got it with like 80 miles on it or 60 miles on it and it was so much fun and um it was great yeah so and then the charging I did I charged it from 30 to to

80% or something like that okay okay that’s all I could get it down to and I I almost missed my flight so I at least have that curve so when I rent it again I can then you know again it’s nice to have multiple curves so we can overlay

Data to verify but but no Oddities while charging first time I’ve really charged a GM ultium vehicle with no question that I was getting the right curve it was consistent it was smooth it was full send and it was big Power it was never below 200 kilowatts this is

The experience we need come on GM Altium what oh it did it it was great so they can do it they can do it maybe they fixed it you know I actually have one you you guys know how I complain about Hummer Eevee charging how I charge it

Like 10 times and never got a repeated uh charging event I had one of the followers I don’t know from here or from state of charge that emailed me and he lives in Pennsylvania not too far from me and he’s like look I have a Hummer EV

And uh it’s uh you know I’ve have the latest software the charging seems stable now so he said you want me to drive to New Jersey and we could do some charge recording so I’m going to do that at some point soon with a with a

Customer car so um hopefully and I’ll be able to compare it to what I have before which was all over the place so um maybe GM’s got that figured out Kyle maybe they you know have ultium charging now where it’s not just derating you know going like Bonkers and then dropping

Down to 4 kilowatts and going up to 120 then 80 and holding for a while and every time I unplug yeah that behavior always happened when we started low though and so this did not I started at 30% so I don’t I don’t think we can be

Confident that they got it sorted what I can say is I didn’t know they could ever provide a consistent charging experience and we at least see a hint of that starting at 30% it was an amazing charging session I gotta tell you this thing just went I recorded it and then a

Hyundai ionic 5 plugged into the shared charger next to me uh and then then it was so funny he charged up and left he only got like I don’t know 10 kilowatt hours and then my truck went right back up so that was that was good interesting

So this is the work speec truck can anyone buy that or do you have to be a fleet customer like what’s the deal with this one just like any other Fleet GM product you have to have a fleet account in order to buy one so it is not the

Consumer one but and there also GM is not really letting reviewers drive them no I say it’s a vehicle we don’t hear too much about right yeah yeah and I don’t know why because it seems pretty juicy and even though it’s not the 4 WT the biggest battery

Uh I think I’m going to rent one from Herz for like a month or two they said it was only I mean it’s expensive yes compared to if you bought it or anything but you can rent it from Herz for about a thousand dollars for the month which

For a unlimited miles that’s really not bad so I was like I’ll just go and rent one for a month or two and do all the comparisons you know when we have cybertruck up there even the the 3wt has a way bigger battery than cybertruck uh Herz doesn’t typically let you tow with

Their vehicle so maybe I can reach out to their media department and see if they would be like oh for the videos maybe they’ll let it slide I don’t know yeah but um yeah I I think it would be worth to have one I don’t know if they

Rent them in Colorado or not but I can at least grab it in California road trip it out and then road trip it back to return it I mean a thousand doll unlimited miles that’s again for what is one of the most interesting EVS of the

Year I think um just gets it needs more attention absolutely I really want to cover the car and it’s just a shame that GM doesn’t want people to GM’s has no electric cars in their Fleet right now no lyrics you can’t test a lyric if you’re a journalist you can’t test a

Blazer you can’t test Sil they pulled the Hummers out really so really yeah oh there’s no Hummers in the in the media fleets now not that I know of wow well interesting we’ll be getting on to the reason why I’m sure in a moment talk

About GM for a little bit then they held their uh their Q4 2023 earnings call this week and on it it uh Mar and it was a very good call actually and there you know they had a really great result in the last quarter and their stock you

Know shot up it’s been GM stock has been on this like I was going to say a curve but it has it’s not a curve it’s been like flat for 10 years basically it hasn’t really change but uh yeah with in the last little bit with a big stock

Buyback and then this great report it’s gone up a little bit you know it’s like 38 or something dollars but um anyway on this call uh Mary Barett said our forward plans include bringing our plug-in hybrid technology to select vehicles in North America let me be clear GM remains committed to

Eliminating tailpipe emissions from our light duty Vehicles by 2020 2035 but in the IND in the interim deploying plug-in technology and strategic segments will deliver some of the environmental benefits of EVS as the nation continues to build its charging infrastructure um and later she said though in a response to a question about

How many plugin hybrids electric vehicles it planed to bring to the market uh she said we are going we are going to bring those in in at a time where we need them from a compliance perspective which I don’t really understand that so much and that she

Would share more details later on uh on plug-in hybrid capacity and that they have the technology and they know the targeted segments that they’re going to apply it to but it’s still not super clear what the strategy is here regarding plugin hybrid on thinking she says it’s coming but the focus and RD

R&D spending right now is pretty much all on the EVS right now the spendings all on on right R&D spending is all EV the focus is on EV but plugin hybrids are coming I don’t know I’ve got thoughts about this but um I want to

Hear yours uh Kyle I’m not sure how long you can stay with this so maybe hit you first real quick what do you think about this well um it’s kind of interesting because we just just bought for my dad’s channel a volt and an

ELR right so he you know we’re in the GM plug-in life now and so I kind of here’s the thing I think what makes sense to me is with current technology battery electrics for standard around town you know SUV sedans whatever but for the truck stuff electric even with that Silverado big

Battery that’s not solving the answer when if you really are using a truck what I’d really like to see what I’ve been really asking for for a long time is an upsized volt drivetrain dropped into a Silverado you know something that is primarily electric with a combustion extender now the Ram Charger they’re

Doing that that’s great that’s what I’m that’s the kind of stuff that I like so I don’t know I think U I’m not a great reviewer of companies and their strategies and their future whatever they’re seeing is as Trends in their future but I will say I can imagine

They’re basing a lot of their numbers off of their sales because it’s GM but they also don’t have a very compelling competitive battery electric vehicle on the market now bolt has stopped right and so they have nothing that is competitive in any category and I wonder if that’s where they’re starting to feel

This pressure to build some plug-in hybrids whether or not it’s because of customer demand or they can’t engineer a better car I don’t know oh yeah REM charger I don’t know if I said something different but yeah that that’s the one that’s gonna be the plugin yeah I think

You said Ram charger okay um yeah I don’t know Tom what you I know you you got thoughts on this yeah it’s interesting I I I don’t I’m not a a plug-in hybrid hater I I know it doesn’t work for me I don’t need

It but I know and I’ve talked to so many people through the years there’s a a lot of people that just aren’t ready or willing to go EV full EV um and in order to get past that the manufacturers have to do a better job of explaining the

Benefits of EVs and dealerships have to do a better job of explaining the value proposition of electric vehicles because EVS in dealerships now and somebody walks in and they look at this car and they’re like oh I could buy this car for 30,000 or I could buy the electric version of it for

42,000 it’s if the dealership can’t properly explain why you actually might be ahead financially if you get the full electric version and also talk about the other benefits of of the electric version the sales are are going to be diminished because of that and we’re seeing that now 100% I can’t tell you

How many people I talk to that say you know Tom because of you I was really ready to get an electric vehicle but when I went to the dealership when it came down to it and the salesman was telling me well you can have this car

For this you can have this car for this he couldn’t he couldn’t push me over the edge for the EV and you know I don’t salespeople don’t care they just want you to buy a car they don’t they’ll sell you a car with any type of propulsion

System but it’s much easier for them to sell you the car with the combustion system because people understand it you don’t have to work hard you don’t have to explain the value proposition you don’t have to you know talk about you know fueling cost and maintenance cost

And and you know just the the the time Savings of not having to go to gas just go home at night you plug it in so there would a competitive disadvantage at the dealership like that if the dealers don’t do a better job the sales are

Going to slow down so I think for a lot of people the plug-in hybrid um is a much easier decision because they can say well um I want to try this electric thing but hey um I’ve got a fall back here and uh you know if if I don’t if I

Can’t charge it or I’m on a long road trip I H I have this uh this backup system so I’m not against there’s a good going to be a period over the next 5 six years I would say 7 years from now there will be absolutely no need for to sell plug-in

Hybrids other than as Kyle said um some commercial truck use where people really need to haul tow very long distances a very heavy heavy weight but for me it’s hard for me to see a manufacturer now say okay we’re going into it now because you know what the life cycle is of vehicles

How long it takes to get them to Market market and then it to me it almost seems like they should have had this this strategy four or five years ago and then towards the end of this this decade they would be phasing them out you don’t see

The Chinese brand saying and doing this and we’ve talked about this before how the American car companies and even German car companies and Japanese car companies to some extent or to full extent if they don’t get competitive in this electric vehicle space they’re they’re going they’re going to get

Crushed in in six seven eight years from now and we talk about Chinese car companies they don’t come here now because there’s tffs and everything they’re going to work their way around that they’re going to be building factories in Mexico they’re going to be coming across the border you know I I if

Byd Li Motors Neo xang a whole bunch of the other ones they’re going to be flooding this Market in six seven years with lowcost long range fast charging high quality electric vehicles and if GM and Ford are still pimping their plug-in hybrids at that point they’re dead and I

I don’t see how they don’t understand this so while I’m not against them uh bringing plug-in hybrids like introducing more to the lineup I hope they understand it’s a stop Gap it’s only for the next five six seven years and they continue to to do R&V R&D on

Their full bevs to be competitive in four five six years when it really is going to matter now we brought up here um a picture of the Vault EV um and and uh out of Dave bought one of these used lately GM had a great plugin hybrid in

In the the tech in that vehicle is amazing I I I you know how I did a lot of deep Dives with their Engineers Josh tavl and people that worked on on these vehicles for GM I mean they actually I’m sure Toyota took this thing apart and

Said they just actually built a better hybrid than we did how the hell did they do this when when when when GM came out with that and it was better than than than Prius technology at at the time but Prius had the name the hybrid name and I

Think that’s why they really outsold say the vault at the time but the the Vault when it came out back in 2012 it was like a revolutionary plug-in hybrid um and and and you know so I’m not against it I hope they they start making some good plugin hybrids I hope that minimum

Driving range is 60 or 70 miles if if it’s under 60 miles these days it’s almost not worth it to to to pour all that money into it because you should be able to drive on pure electric on most days of the year and if the average

American drives say 40 miles a day you know that’s that’s your average day that means a lot of days you’re driving 60 70 miles some days you’re driving 30 40 miles um I I’d like to see them have 60 70 miles minimum driving range introduce some decent plug-in hybrids you know put

The voltech technology in Equinox which I I was screaming for that in 2012 they could have killed if they did it back then um but you know one of the problems I have with this and Fords say okay you know the our electric vehicles aren’t selling as well

We’re going to we’re going to we’re going to we’re going to go back to plug-in hybrids first of all GM how could they say their they’re and I don’t know if they’ve said this I know Ford has said this how can they be disappointed in their electric vehicle

Sales they they’re not making them they have some compelling Vehicles Silverado EV Blazer EV Equinox EV they can’t get them out of the factories um so maybe it’s what Kyle was talking about maybe it’s a matter fact that they just don’t have confidence that they can build them correctly and

Make them work so I I hope that’s not the case Ford it’s a little bit more difficult to figure out you know they complained about their sales the the the um the they set a record on the most bevs they s every year Ford selling more electric vehicles the lightning yeah it

Didn’t crush it last year I sold about 25,000 of them it was the eighth bestselling electric vehicle in North America so it’s not like the sales were horrible um uh maybe they just overestimated how quickly the ramp up would be if you look at the annual sales of electric vehicles in North America

And I think we have a chart for that it’s not like EV sales are flat they’re going up every year yeah not going quite as much as it seemed like or something well as as it’s you say as it seemed like as who seemed like look at look at

Let’s bring this chart up here that’s that’s plug-in vehicle sales from 2010 to last year okay are are EV sales flat now are are are do are we experienced some kind of um you know leveling off or plateauing where they say well this the the you know they’re not selling as well

No look at that if if if I was a statistician I would look at this and say geez you know it looks like they’re just starting to take off now it started in 2021 and there’s no um real sign that there that that sales are waning now on

This chart the dark green is pure bevs the light green is plugin hybrid cells so you you can see plug-in hybrids are selling more also but they don’t sell near their sales are about a quarter of what purely electric vehicles are so when you look at this you say how how

Come everyone’s talking about EV sales are down if you read any kind of news articles these days it’s like it has to say that it looks it looks like all disappointing electric vehicle sales look at this chart how can you say we have disappointing EV sales did they

Expect it to just go through the roof at in one year that’s not going to happen it’s it’s always a gradual climb if if if I were to look at this as an industry analyst I’d say holy crap like EV sales are exploding you know only we we sold

Double what we sold two years ago last year so you know it’s kind of it’s it’s a all frustrating when I hear and read these articles oh all the order manufacturers they EVS aren’t selling all the manufacturers are going to go back to plugin hybrids because nobody wants the EVS

It it that that’s ridiculous you know look at maybe the these manufacturers just thought it was going to ramp up faster than it was they’ve always been wrong historically it’s it’s amazing how aut manufacturers this is their business and they have hundreds of people studying market trends and doing

Research and polls and everything yet they always seem to get predictions wrong both ways and for gas vehicles too I mean manufacturers are always tweaking their output for their combustion vehicles but you don’t read about it in the news you know you don’t read that oh you know the forecast they cutting back

10% of of uh you know Blazer regular Blazer uh production nobody really cares about it because the industry does that all the time but um anyway uh it’s it’s frustrating to me to see so much negativity with electric vehicles now um in the news when sales are taking off so

You know throwing some plug-in hybrids in there that’s a good Eevee which training wheels for a lot of people that aren’t ready for full bevs but um we’re going to the full beev sales are going to continue to climb year-over-year we’re at that point now where and I talk

About the hockey stick adoption curve and if you looked at that chart it’s kind of flat for a while it goes up a little bit then it starts to curve like a hockey stick we’re in that now and um year over-ear we’re going to see more and more electric vehicle sales and if

GM and Ford and and stellantis here in the US don’t want to sell pure electric vehicles Neo xping Lee motors byd they’ll be more than happy to take your customers Shang on um Martin they sold they sold the vault in the UK right yeah the empera

That’s true you had even had the better name over there I well in my opinion he had the better name over there aera that looks great uh so what do you think about this do you think well the market over there might be a little different

Do you have a lot lot of plug-in hybrids over there compared to here or I mean uh yeah there there are plug-in hybrids on the market here in the UK because the UK unlike Mainland Europe is quite different in that our EVS have been incentivized through business use so we

If you have a company car and you’re allowed to drive it because of your workplace you get taxed uh because it’s it’s called benefit in kind and so um if you get a company car and you’re allowed to use it to go get a pine of milk at

The weekend you know it’s a work van but you can go do whatever with it or even just a car that you have personal use of um uh then we have a a benefit in kind it’s it’s you know it’s like having any benefit from work then you you need to

Get taxed on that um and we are quite a high taxation over here so um the government killed that it was 0% it’s 1% 2% it’s it’s increasing through this decade but it doesn’t if you’re going to have a company car you heading off all right take care all right see you later

Okay thank you see you guys by all right see you right uh it only makes sense to have an EV so it’s a lot of businesses had uh in incentivized to give their workers EVs and plugin hybrids and there was no incentive to charge them so a lot

Of people have plug in hybrids and never plugged them in so there was that issue as well anyway um let’s unpick this a little bit as I said in the intro it was a very good earnings report for General Motors it was and so on the

Back of hey guys we’re doing really well it was surprising to then get that plug-in hybrid news as Tom as it follows off the back of neg negativity from Ford who uh have just been talking about plug-in hybrids a little more recently and so what we didn’t get on that

Earnings call were any specifics there was no plan and that I think was perhaps the frustration that some people felt was we’re going to be rolling out plug-in hybrids when we need to as and when and rather than oh we have a system that we can put into our existing combustion

Cars because if you know half a thing about uh making cars and maybe the people on that earnings called that were quizzing you know the the analysts I like those the analysts uh that ask the questions you think that that if that’s their job paid very well to understand

The automotive industry then they would know that you can’t just throw a a hybrid powertrain into a combustion car uh you can create platforms that that that that can have either a combustion a hybrid a plug-in hybrid or a pure uh inside and you create that from scratch

The Koreans have done that very well with the conas and the neros and so it’s all very doable but I didn’t hear any detail like that of what are the vehicles you’re going to do this with and what’s the time is it is it this year have you been working on this in

The background for 3 years and here’s our new plugin hybrid range right and so that lack of detail concerns me because the car industry is a as everyone knows is a very very long play and so uh CFOs boardrooms um product road maps are very comfortable talking 15 or 20 years in

The future that’s just the nature of the car business and so it was odd to suddenly have this out of the blue because it’s again I’m slightly more detached from where I am I’m at a distance to the US uh it it it seems it seems a little kind

Of out of nowhere and and a little hard to believe that they’re going to be able to do it well to be honest with you because they’ve not done EVS very well and so and so why would we expect anything different because they can do the combustion business really well um

So there’s there’s that side of it and then there’s the other there’s the other side of it as well which is US companies take up a a disproportionate amount of the negative headlines that I’m sure our viewers and listeners have seen out there now in the

US last year over a million EVS were sold globally this year there’ll be 16 or 17 million EV sold so with all respect and I mean this with complete respect because it’s hard sometimes uh for for my great American friends to hear it the USA is not a big

Deal in the world of EVs and it seems like it should be because you got Tesla and you’ve got the Detroit automakers but when it comes to electric vehicles as Tom hinted to uh if if the US decides we’re not going EV it’s less you know it’s about 11% but going forward it

Could be under 10% again now of the EV of the global EV sales and so what’s interesting is it’s not actually a big deal for GM or Ford to back away for a decade because globally it won’t matter China will go EV and is going EV and China is bringing forward its

EV uh predictions it was going to be 25% or you 35% by 2030 and now it’s going to be 50% like it’s China is racing ahead of even their own ambitious targets and the same here in Europe the EU are pushing forward with you know Norway is pushing forward first with

Banning combustion and then you know we’re 2030 the UK had a slight change in the headline thing but they didn’t under they didn’t change the underlying law the Mandate so it got good headlines for the Prime Minister but it didn’t actually change anything really so we’ll

Be about 2030 the rest of Mainland will be about 2035 and so what the car makers know is that hasn’t changed and so they have they they they will carry on making compelling electric vehicles for the markets that want to buy them and if the US isn’t one of them

That’s okay because it’s still a big Market obviously and but it’s just it’s not a deal breaker the US delaying the move to EV is far more of a headline than reality and that’s the thing I’d like to remind everybody of is that you’re going to see again through this year a lot

More of these these headlines about the the the growth is slowing yeah but the growth has been two 300% compounding and though maybe it’ll be 150% growth so they’re taking those figures and there’s a lot of vested interests um and uh and it’s going to be an interesting year for those negative

Those negative headlines and I think GM didn’t mean to play into it but obviously they did play into that because all you know all the headlines were ah GM are giving up on EV and that’s not what they said it’s not what they said but that was the that was the

Interpretation it’s not a huge deal although I found it very frustrating decision for them to make personally I’m such a huge fan of pure pure EVS it it took me by surprise so you know I kind of like plugin hybrids I I I uh I was a

Moderator at Forum we had a huge like Honda Clarity plugin hybrid Community there and you know they have great experiences but so this whole thing though I kind of agree with Tom I think it was a big mistake for for GM to develop the voltech power train

Originally and came up with you know the Chevy Volt which is I you know for its time especially was like a you know great technology but then it didn’t continue to improve it really and make it an option in other vehicles you know like SUVs or or pickup trucks or or

Anything it’s just the ELR they stuck it in the ELR and you know under they put a $70,000 price tag on it and it end up with a you know gorgeous looking Cadillac that was underpowered um you know I I think I don’t know I think it should have been

Uh more developed they should have kept developing it and improving on it um so but since it stopped selling the only plug-in hybrid model it had in 19 it doesn’t make sense to me to bring it now back now five years later uh so I’m not sure exactly how much engineering work

They have to do I mean that’s the thing so let me just share this one thing here with you on the screen so this is the wooling what’s it called the Starlite I believe the wooling Starlite and it is an electric car in China but it’s made see yeah it’s electric Starlite it’s

Launched in December 6 just as past cheap too 13,200 USD but they make also so they make this with uh in in with uh see sgmc is a Sino American joint venture between GM seic and wooling and this car also is available as a plug-in hybrid which is why why I’m sharing it

Here um so it seems like the do still have the technology or or modern kind of version of it at least I’m not sure you know how that translates what they’re doing now because it doesn’t sound like they’re putting a whole lot of spend you know into R&D on plug-in hybrids but

They are going to put it in I don’t know it just seems to me like um it’s I just don’t think there’s a timeline for it really you know because with EVS really coming on strong like if you have a see how do I put it here

The only way to take advantage of a plugin hybrid electric vehicle is to plug it in every day but if you can plug in a plug in hybrid electric vehicle every day you can also plug in an EV and so I’m not sure why you need that the

Handholding maybe if some cases sure it’ll you know some people really want to play in hybrid more than they want an e and I understand that if they travel a lot and they have in an area where there’s not a great infrastructure but uh sorry I’m I’m losing

My may I also say remember that the dealers are enormously they are disproportionately powerful in the United States than compared to anywhere else in the world and they’ve now written two letters one last year one this year to the Biden Administration saying we don’t want to sell electric

Vehicles and if they are now sticking their head up of the parit and signing their name at the bottom of that letter thousands of them do it um in two letters now to the White House to say we do not want to sell EVS want to sell hybrids and soft hybrids and plug-in

Hybrids can you imagine the conversations over the last two years between them and the oems they will not have been Pleasant conversations and ultimately if all of your dealers because of the situation that you’ve got yourself to in the United States with a very very powerful dealer Association if

They’re saying we don’t want to sell these cars you know we heard from Kyle at the beginning of the podcast they did not know how to sell an EV um then then the M’s will be careful what I say I was about to say buckle and it just sounds like

It’s a giant fight and I don’t I want to I don’t want to make anything of fight because the there’s too many fights on the internet but but you know what I mean like they have to listen the dealers are hugely important to the oems

And if they’re saying we do not want to sell them at some point you go well we want to sell cars we want to build cars and sell them to you and you sell them to customers you have to get real at some point so a very very powerful Lobby

There has happened now twice with them saying it’s not that we’ll never never go EV but our customers like the point the dealers were making in those letters were our customers are not asking for them they’re more expensive than the other vehicles we just don’t want to

Sell them yet right and it was I think it was a reasonable thing for them to say if I owned a dealer group of you know 20 dealers in a state somewhere I’d probably sign my name to that because I want to get paid at the end of the month

That’s the thing they just want to sell cars and you you guys know that I did a lot of dealership training I worked in a lot of areas and the interesting thing is would go I’d go into an area like let’s say up to Massachusetts to train uh six several a

Dealerships and five of them would be complaining about Eves and saying we can’t get rid of these things and then there’d be one that would take all their inventory like would say you know oh you don’t want those bolts send them over here I’ll ship you over some some gas

Cars you know they they trade vehicles you know and and because that dealership took it seriously and trained the staff and when people came in they had uh you know a a loner bolt for somebody to drive when they were bringing their you know their gas car in for service um you

Know that’s the the man if the manufacturers really want the dealerships to sell these cars one of the best tools that they can do is um subsidize um loner electric vehicles at the dealerships see the the the the dealers have certain loaner fleets some dealers don’t even have loaners anymore

They just send you to a a a um uh they have a arrangement with a rental car agency nearby but if the manufacturers subsidized the the uh the uh loaners let’s say you know a a a Chevrolet dealership gets three Equinox and they put EVs and put them into service

Loaners that are just for service vehicle loaners and then GM says you know what we’ll incur half your costs on on on on those service loaners um but we want to see them on the road they can’t just be parked on your thing we want to

See you know at least one or two rentals a week for each one of them so you’re going to have to push them on on on on customers you know when somebody comes in you know hey I’ve got an equinox you know an electric Equinox for you to buy

I don’t want that electric car it’s the only thing we have all right give it to me you know and and getting people in them to use them would is is a is a powerful sales tool it demystifies this you know and um but they have to educate

Them too they can’t just like them in a car they need to you know help them out with it figuring out what’s how you know how to deal with it how to live with it properly yeah so I uh people are complaining that I’m low let me see if I

Could put my mic up higher and over here how’s that sound a little bit better I think I’m a little closer to it now maybe maybe tap on that mic for a second is that the one is sounds like it’s on that mic it sounds like it’s on that mic okay pretty

Sure that’s what’s being used so I I’ll just talk a little bit closer but um yeah I think that’s a big part of it is getting people get if until the dealerships get on board with this and the only way to get dealerships on board

With it is is money the the only thing they care about is a financial incentive the oems have to share the pain with the dealerships because they’re shipping them the cars now they’re not helping them sell them um a lot of the dealerships aren’t asking for help it

Almost has to be force fed on them I think at this point and um you know otherwise they’re going to lag and this is an existential threat for Ford and GM I wholeheartedly believe that I know a lot of people it’s it seems you know impossible for people we’ve lived our

Whole lives GM and Ford you know where where you know these these monstrosities back if you’re my age or even older you know it g if GM and Ford if it was good for GM it was good for America you know people used to say and they um and those

Oh yeah I mean they they were just you know cor you know cornerstones of of American economy was GM and Ford but the we’re at this period now where the next six or seven or eight years is pivotal if they get this wrong they’re they’re going to be you

Know Nokia they’re going to be Blackberry they’re you know there it’s it’s going to happen and uh I I hope it doesn’t happen but um yeah and one of the things that to to build on your point on is the consumer confidence and that’s one of the things that I think

Jim fary does incredibly well and you and I have spoken about when they first talked about and then we be we we’ll talk about this in a moment the the the Ford Knack Tesla adapter connector when he first went on CNBC or whatever it was

And he went yeah we’ll ship them free to customers and whether that was a slip of the tongue or whether it was intentional we don’t we don’t know um I know that some people within Ford pulled away a little bit of we’re like well let’s confirm that and then

This week he did say no we’ll send them all free that gives huge consumer confidence on the second biggest purchase that all of us will make in our lives behind if we are homeowners and home purchasers than behind the house the car is nearly always second and

There was my frustration this week with GM which was oh no h EVS no no you mean plug-in hybrids my friends that’s the future and and that was the frustration which was the confusion because those headlines are picked up on all the financial channels they drip down

Through them and they get into the mainstream as well and and people if they’re not super into EVS they’ll just scan the headlines in their feed and and along with all of the other stuff they’ll see well you know General Motors backing away from electric vehicles which was genuinely the headlines I saw

This week even though it’s not true then you’re going to not want to buy what why would you invest your own personal hard-earned money in that when you think well I mean AV is going to be around in 10 years I think Ford do it very well

But we are all we are also living in an era where for the time being in the US round the boardroom table the the CFO the Chief Financial Officer is currently pulling the strings now there was a period of time where Tesla caught everyone with their pants down and the

CTO and the product managers and the head of the head of electric vehicle programs at all these car companies got a very big voice in the room because they were all worried about what was happening and and for some reason the last year or so I I think it’s going to

Continue this year the realization kicking in of how massively Capital intensive it is to do these projects the wobbles that have happened around the Border room table the the the the bean counters have got an outsized voice at the moment and that balance of power has

Shifted and the big car makers in the US not not everywhere are are publicly having a wobble and so when Jim Farley comes out and says no we’ll ship them all for free uh and uh that is that’s exactly what they all need to be doing that’s what GM that’s what Mary Barrett

Did for the last three years until this week right although she couldn’t deliver on her promises which that’s a whole separate podcast they said we’re going to be here with EVS they never ever came with them and they never delivered because they couldn’t get him right um

And we still want them to do that and we still think they can do that so it’s that confusion as well which the last thing uh add add on top of all the dealer stuff as well you walk into your dealership they’re not fully on board

You’ve seen the CEO saying oh no plug in hybrids what are many people going to expect right so so right now there’s there are a bunch of there are a number of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the market right now so people can go out and buy like a plug-in hybrid uh Kia

I believe and also like a BMW there these three different brands have have them there they can get them the thing I’m thinking about with GM I just don’t know if there’s that big a time frame to make any money off of it you know what I

Mean and um so I I I just don’t not that I don’t think that they should there should be no plug-in hybrids I think for some people you know it’s it’s fine technology it’s I’m not opposed to plugin hybrids on any sort of Phil opical level at this juncture in in

History um I just think their time is kind of limited and uh I don’t know that Jim can make a whole lot of money on on them in the in that you know five or seven years I think when because I don’t think they’ll make any sense in five or

Five years or so when we have we’ll have a lot more infrastructure uh I I expect charging uh better battery technology to be improved from where we are today quite significantly actually and uh I just don’t think there’s going to be the market so I’m not sure that’s

The you know jumping into that is like and and to be clear like and to your point Martin there’s a lot of headlines out there about GM doing an about face and things but if you listen to actually Mar on the call and Mary speaking she is

Quite clear that you know the focus is on EV but and this is I don’t know she used the word compliance or something in her statement you know not compliance some sort of uh I mentioned it earlier but anyway it doesn’t seem like she’s like really you know married to

The idea or really you know going to push them hard but I guess if if they have the technology they can put in some vehicles and make an extra option they are getting a lot of pressure from dealers to bring back hybrids and you know they don’t GM doesn’t sell any

Hybrids right now like normal hybrids like personally I think every vehicle they have should be you know electrified to some extent like even like a basic hybrid version but they don’t have that which you know shame on them they should have done that that’s what Toyota’s doing in Toyota’s hybrid sales are are

Doing very well right now um but anyway there’s a big bit of news I thought we should talk about it somewhat and I’m not sure if we’ve beat the horse completely to death but uh it does seem to be in a lot of Agony I don’t know so let’s talk about something else

For a second um last year for surprised Everybody by announcing it was adopting adopting the Tesla charge connector and gaining access to the supercharger Network then yesterday CEO Jim Farley or was the day before uh CEO Jim Farley put out a couple posts on social media

Saying that the 20 to 21 or 21 to 24 model year Mustang Maki and Ford F-150 Lightning owners will will be eligible to receive a free KNX to CCS adapter and that the reservation process will be validated by VIN with one charger available per Vin or per vehicle and uh

Cost of shipping is included and details on how to reserve one along with the tech specs of the adapter will be shared soon so activating charging and payment once a customer has an adapter they say will be seamless through Ford pass or in vehicle public charging app um so a

Press release was put up with that info but it also had this little extra tibbit at the end that this is uh for owners won’t have access to the entire uh entire supercharger Network which we’ve kind of known but this is what the thing is uh so the the uh pressure release

Makes it clear that this is only for version three and up stations so that means the version two superchargers which Peak at 150 kilowatts uh as opposed to 250 kilowatts for the version 3es and version fours version four should increase to more than that even eventually now those aren’t those 150

Kilowatt the OG superchargers will not be accessible for fors uh but you know all the other ones well and that number is big and growing even since they made the original announcement we’re up to 17,250 pedestals uh Tesla superchargers that Forge will be able to charge up and

That number is growing as you know Tesla is very aggressive with its supercharger build so Tom you’re very familiar with adapters generally what can you tell us about this one so the interesting thing is when um Farley first came out and said that um I immediately contacted Ford and I

Was like you’re going to give away a free adapter to to 60,000 Machi and lightning owners that’s like you know $10 million worth of adapters and plus shipping you know and and they were kind of like no no no no no I you know we we

We’ll get clarity on this I that’s not going to be the case I think I think Jim was excited about the announcement and he was saying that you know um our customers will have access to to uh the adapter and you know we’re not going to

Be shipping these things out and um I uh um I even spoke about it here on state of charge I think I even wrote about it on inside EVs and um you know that was C made clear to me by Ford Representatives that no we will not be giving these

Things away um but now we turn out I guess Jim doubled down on it and said you know what um I think we should be doing this and we’re going to do it and he said it so now you can’t undo that he could have almost walked it back on CNBC

Because it he kind of said it quickly he didn’t tweet it like he did now so I mean that’s that’s like I think they’ve sold over 60,000 lightning in machis at this point so you know that’s that’s a lot of adapters and speaking of which so you guys might remember about three four

Months ago I did a video with the a toz um adapter I had a prototype of it and I brought the CEO on and state of charge and we did an interview I just interviewed him again this week because now they have the final production

Version of the adapter is is out and for sale and uh they made a lot of improvement over the uh prototype that I had three months ago so I brought on the inside the uh CEO um Amin zor as well as one of his engineers and Consultants on

The adapter and one of the people that worked on taking the original prototype making it better uh they also worked with some of the oems they sent all the oems the adapters and said look tell us what you don’t like about this and we’ll improve it because um obviously we would

Like if you endorse it you know we probably won’t get that but at least tell us what you would like to see changed they took all that in they re-engineered it and now they have a final product um that interview is going to go up on state of charge this

Afternoon it’s about a half an hour long I think we learned a lot about the new adapter um and as I say in the video I’m not here to pimp or sell these adapters um you know it’s uh if you want one if you’re interested in getting an adapter

Take a look at the video you make your own decision I’m certainly not discouraging you from buying one I think I feel pretty comfortable with this adapter now that I’ve really talked to their engineer seen the improvements they’ve made on it um I’ve actually seen some pictures which I couldn’t share of

The facility in China that makes it the the testing protocol that that that went into it and um you know I I think they made a lot of serious upgrades and uh I’m going to be using this one on my cars and testing the heck out of it I’m

Going to pretty much get all the adapters um and uh I’ll be getting one from Ford and and rivan I own a rivan and a Ford both companies said they’re going to give them away ni I don’t think that’s going to be protocol for all the companies I do not see companies giving

These away I think it’s just kind of like a um Ford and maybe rivan almost feel bad like we’ve been sell you these EVS the last two years and now we’re switching the connector but like moving on from now on it’s public knowledge the EVS are going to be changing to The

Knack so that’s kind of on you you know so um I don’t think I think you’re going to be buying these adapters I mean heck look at how many car companies don’t even give you a level one charger with the car anymore so they’re not going to

Give you a $200 adapter I don’t believe so at least so but um I’ll be testing all of them and if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about this guy here check out state of charge this afternoon that video will be going up that’s something that I’ve been thinking

About because Ford really kicked off the gold rush of announcements of everyone doing this do you think by Jim saying we’re going to give the adapter away for free do you think that causes some headaches this weekend around the boardroom table of course elsewhere of course it does everybody’s talk everyone

Do we do this now and you know um cuz if not you’re a cheap skate right cuz Ford will do it it’d be a lot easier for GM to do it because that well no I was going to say because they haven’t sold any EVS but they would have to backtrack

On bolts and they sold a lot of bolts a lot of bolts yeah and somebody asked me about the price it’s 197 right now this is just not they shouldn’t do that to the Tesla Supercharger Network and here’s the thing about Tesla owner so so I even had some like the the

Thing about the thing about this is let’s say all rivian and Ford customers are going to be shipping them they’re going to be getting them don’t think you’re going to get this like in a week because between rivian and Ford owners is probably 80,000 of these things

70,000 or so of them that um that need to be uh sent out there’s no way they’ll make them that fast so I even think that some people that are say Ford customers are going to run out and buy one and and then just get the other one free and

Figure like well it’s better to have two case one breaks or I can you know whatever because you know you if you remember when the ccs1 adapter came out for Tesla owners first so they could use ccs1 Tesla was like perpetually out of stock on them people were going like

Every day and checking you were refreshing and it was like they sold the first 5,000 they made and then they got back ordered and they stopped selling them so I think that’s going to happen again I think it’s going to I think it’s going to take like six months for Ford

To actually ship them out to all their to all their customers I I hope I’m wrong but um you know it’s don’t think if you have a Ford vehicle you’re you’re going to get this and like as soon as you put in your VIN and say I want one

Um I think I think it’s going to take a long time because the the first of all the company that’s providing them to Ford um you know isn’t going to just take their first 880,000 or 70,000 of them and just give them the Ford they’re going to want to be doing retail sales

Too because they’re going to get more money selling them to retail customers so we we assume that’s Tesla we assume that Ford has made the deal because Tesla’s making their own adapter um and so are a bunch of other companies so um I haven’t heard of anybody signing a

Deal yet with with wi with Ford or rivan or who’s to sell them um so I’m assuming there will Tesla but I do know that all of the companies are trying to get the oems to certify their adapter as like okay we can we we’ll give you this um to

Our customers because it’s safe and it’s made well but um we’ll we’ll we’ll I’ll stay on top of that I’m also electron is going to be making one also uh they actually just started advertising it I’m going to be interviewing their company also this week and that interview is

Going to probably be up on state of charge next week so um I’m going to really stay on f are the which are so people you don’t bu a junk one and and Tom in the Ford Pass App because I haven’t got that will it mean it’s as seamless as as a

Supercharger as in do you have all your billing in there will it just be a case of rock on up and plug in and walk away I think that’s what it’s supposed to be and you know towards the end of February we we understand that Tesla is going to

Be opening up like saying okay on our end we can accept the these other vehicles that agreed to uh to to to to do this with us but now I think we’re going to be waiting for the companies the Fords and the GMS to get their

Backend done their app ready so so that they can um you know use it so I think what we’re going to see is the end of this month Tesla is going to be like okay you can use our superchargers and the the Ford and GM like no our

Customers can’t use them yet we’re not ready you know yeah cuz I think Ford is still targeting spring for uh for for for and that’s what they said all along I haven’t heard anything differently um but we did hear from Tesla that the end of February their end would be ready to

Go right we heard there was that meeting in California somewhere where uh an nesla employee mentioned that said something about to the effect that this would be happening in February but that wasn’t for’s uh communication at all so spring is but expectations were kind of set back then a little bit you know

Because there was headlines everywhere February but no it’s that’s not happening it looks like it looks like it’s going to be March or April sometime it’ll happen sometime you you know it’s spring is what we the I I reached out to Ford to try to confirm that and they

Said nothing has changed on our end we we said spring in the beginning we’re sticking with spring we’ll let you know when if that changes okay right happy christas reminds us it will be crowded that the superchargers right now I have seen eyes where you had to wait 5

Minutes for a stall to open I am not liking that he frustration not just not just over the holiday season as well in many places is they queue in already and uh they take up two spaces I mean Tes still still like putting out the supercharges they make them in you know

They make them fast they make they put up I mean they just install way more even now than the the other networks maybe combined so I I think they’ll eventually I think they’ve got to catch up to the demand right but anyway we’re just about yeah we’re up against our

Clock here but I just wanted to mention that the uh Volvo E ex30 that’s a lot of people very excited about it’s been delayed a little bit but I think it’s only going to be Europe and only by a couple weeks it looks like it’s looking through the communications last night it

Looks like it we’re still on for the mid 2024 in the US for the Volvo ex30 so don’t worry if you see some headlines about delays there is looks like a couple weeks of delay in in in Europe and of course they’ve also had the ex9s delayed since like last it’s supposed to

Be by now but now it’s also you delay because and these are both software issues which you know just underlines that software is difficult for everybody oh one sorry guys one more thing I wanted to bring up about the adapter it’s it it it we keep T talking about supercharger access supercharger

Access you have to remember all of the networks Electrify America EV go charge point they’re all adding KNX connectors to their stations so these adapters will work there also so you know it’s it’s you it’s not just supercharger access you’ll also have be able to you

Know I mean you you’d be able to plug in a CCS vehicle there also but uh just just so you know these adapters are designed to work with with uh the system anywhere not just Tesla superchargers which if you are on a seam a more seamless experience as as crazy as this might

Sound if using the KNX connector is either quicker and it saves me 5 Seconds or is more seamless or the billing happens all in one place and is more convenient it would be crazy that you turn up to a station that’s got both a ccs and and a ax cable and that you’re

Getting your adapter out and not using the you know and using that but it might be a better experience than which is odd because I see our friend Brandon flash when he’s in the right mood trying to reply to people on Twitter uh when they

Go oh the Tesla protocol is is just way better than ccs and he knows more about charging than anyone and he’s like it Tesla is CC it’s all built on the same thing Tesla is CCS like it’s not it’s it’s they’re not two separate things so

When he’s in a generous mood he’s nice to people and like you know trying to educate the Tesla Fanboys um but it’ll be because it but it does genuinely work better so be interesting to see how people use those St I I think Tom that’s the point that that doesn’t get talked

About very much we all talk about the adapters we don’t ever talk about the fact that there’s going to be new Chargers in the ground with these cables natively that’s true it’s a really good point you have a nice k your Kitty’s coming to visit you in the background I

Don’t know if you know that Martin but oh hello yeah one of one of two black cats that we have two little rescue cats that we have that make my life hell about 6: a.m. when they W feeding right all right oh just really quick uh speaking of adapters really quick

Uh bjor Nyland has a really cool video this week where he uh he tried out the highi Z which is a electric sports car from China it’s like Bonkers kind of crazy but he had to charge it with a with an adapter from the uh the Chinese

Standard to fit CCS the European CCS uh uh charger that that thing it’s got its own battery inside of it it’s just crazy Tom if you haven’t seen it you should go check that out yeah but anyway I think that brings us to the end of show if you have any

Comments or questions please leave them below or get in touch with us with us on the social media platform of your choice don’t forget if you like the show please give us a thumbs up uh click subscribe tap that Bell icon for notifications because we’ll be coming up in midweeks

Um and thank you all very much for joining us and we’ll see you all again next time ciao

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:46 EV News Daily Weekly Reporting Roundup
00:06:41 Tom’s Emporia Energy home charger giveaway
00:10:17 Refreshed Porsche Taycan charges curve is crazy!
00:26:47 Kyle tells us about experiencing the Honda Prologue (but not driving impressions)
00:29:49 leasing a Vinfast VF8 https://youtu.be/s90qmaYjcIw
00:37:09 Kyle talks about leasing the Chevrolet Silverado EV from Hertz
00:43:49 GM plans to add plug-in hybrid option to some vehicles https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-reverses-course-plug-hybrids
01:19:45 Ford confirms fee NACS-to-CCS adapters for owners coming this spring https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-reverses-course-plug-hybrids
01:31:27 Volvo EX30 launch is delayed in Europe https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/volvo-software-issue-stalls-ex30-small-suv-deliveries

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