B/F: The Drive Thru #17

• EV start-up Rivian beats Tesla, GM, Ford as first automaker to produce electric pickup

• Mercedes Starts Building Its Tesla Model S Fighter

• Tesla moving headquarters to Texas from California
• Tesla tempted drivers with 'insane' mode and now is tracking them to judge safety. Experts say it's ludicrous.
• A West Virginia city is taking a Tesla patrol car for a test drive
• Another Tesla in autopilot hits parked emergency vehicle (state trooper)
• Tesla is under investigation because its cars keep hitting emergency vehicles

1000hp McLaren vs Tesla Plaid

Tesla Roadster Door Handle – Reveal!

Tesla “Easter Eggs” discovered in voice command system

Executive Producer Tania: [00:00:00] The Drive Thru is GTM’s monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like HPTEjunkie. com, Hooked on Driving, AmericanMuscle. com, CollectorCarGuide. net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, and many others. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the Drive Thru, look no further than www.

gtmotorsports. org. Click about and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports Grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast, Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide.

Crew Chief Eric: Which sadly brings us into our favorite section used to be called a side of golden nuggets. It was, would you like fries with that?

It’s changed names several times, but now thankfully it’s called we would be remiss. So Tanya, what would we be remiss about this month? If we didn’t talk about it,

Executive Producer Tania: we would be remiss. So I don’t want to cover [00:01:00] this one, but it’s here. So we would

Crew Chief Eric: much like Brad doesn’t want to cover Corvettes. You get stuck with Tesla’s now that’s your thing.

Executive Producer Tania: And I’m fine with that. It’s just. The latest gimmick that they’re doing, you know, some people think it’s quite clever. There’s those that would say genius. I have a different definition for something that’s genius. Being able to say open butthole for my electric charger door to pop open to me as a Fully formed adult is not genius for a 12 year old.

Yes. I could see this being quite hysterical. Thank you for bringing this to us. And you know, some people might think, Oh, this is just a joke. It came out in April, April fools. No, I fully believe this is no joke because I have ridden in a Tesla with the fart [00:02:00] sounds turned on for the turn signals. So instead of click click click, so this is completely on par.

with something musk would do. So I fully believe that you can say open butthole.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, but it gets better because if you watch the video that accompanies this particular episode, a gentleman goes through and reviews this particular voice command feature. There are variants to it. If you say open butthole, it opens the charge port.

If you say close butthole, it closes the charge port. If you say open My butthole, it will open the trunk. Did you know that?

Executive Producer Tania: You also want to know why this isn’t genius? If we’re going to anthropomorphize a vehicle, its butthole would not be on the side of it. Where energy is going into. Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s, that’s my, my, that was going to be my point.

It shouldn’t be open butthole. It should be put it in your [00:03:00] mouth.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh yeah. Because that makes it

Crew Chief Brad: better.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, this is the mouth also isn’t on the side. If you were going to like it, the

Crew Chief Brad: mouth is where fuel and energy goes in.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. I mean, personally, I think

Crew Chief Brad: this is just foreplay and dirty talk between Elon and Grimes. And they just kind of translate it into.

You know, Tesla production, somebody, he probably was, you know, getting down with, with grimes and, uh, he, but dialed somebody in, uh, somebody at work, you heard him say, Oh yeah, open your butthole, open your butthole. And they’re like, Okay, I guess we’ll implement that into the

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, Mr. Musk. Yes, Mr. Musk. Right away, Mr.

Musk. We’ll take care of that. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, clearly it sells. People are into it. I don’t know. Hot take. It’s dumb. Speaking of

Crew Chief Eric: dumb, let’s talk about the new door handles on the Tesla. Oh, that’s not gonna [00:04:00] break. The video, you kind of get a sneak peek here of the new Tesla Roadster. We heard about this on the drag racing episode with Bobby parks.

He’s really excited about wheels.

Executive Producer Tania: I love

Crew Chief Eric: like,

Crew Chief Brad: I love that the Tesla Roadster is a coupe.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re right on all counts. But this new door handle, you know, the current Teslas, the door handle kind of pops out at you. It’s like electromechanical and then you grab it, you know, all this kind of thing. This new one is swipe.

And the best part of it is you get the glimpse of the new quote unquote Roadster or coupe rather. And you get to see this guy trying a new door handle and he must swipe it like this. Four or five times and it doesn’t react. And I’m like, what is that? This would be the most infuriating thing on the planet for me, if this is how I have to now open my door.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently he was swiping up and you should have swiped down. I mean, I thought it was left and

Crew Chief Eric: right.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s different, but it could be linked together.

Crew Chief Brad: Instead of swipe, they should call it foreplay. And he just didn’t know how to, how to get the [00:05:00] car to do what he wanted it to do.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh my God.

Crew Chief Brad: He should have swiped right.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh man, I, you know, I get, I get that. That’s where technology and innovation is taking us, but it’s just like, the more things get so technically complex like that, it’s like, There’s simplicity in simple things that will always work, like a door handle, like a button on a, on a phone or, or, or on something, not some touch tone thing that then the screen breaks and then you can’t turn your AC on or off or something in your, your car, all these infotainment systems, you know, a dial, a button it’s mechanical.

Yeah, you can break it off if you’re an idiot, but for the most part, these things last decades. I

Crew Chief Brad: feel a rant coming.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if you’ve ever used one of those Samsung TVs, and I’m sure there’s other brands that do this with the touch front where there’s no buttons, I have one of these. I’ve had the luxury of owning it for many years.

I refused to touch it anymore because it’s infuriating [00:06:00] to hit the volume 9, 000 times. Let me just go get the remote. So hopefully my key fob for Tesla will allow me to open the door without touching the stupid thing, because if it’s anything like the Samsung TVs, it’ll drive you nuts. That’s all I’m saying.

Executive Producer Tania: And then how about, how’s it going to handle rain when it’s pouring down rain and there’s water flowing down the side or ice it ices on a winter morning and you’re, you’re chiseling the ice off of it or pour it, pouring warm water to melt it because I can’t open my door because

Crew Chief Eric: you’re wearing a glove.

So I can’t sense that you’re opening the door. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: You got to get the new, you got to get those new gloves with the touchpads that you can use on your touchscreens

Crew Chief Brad: or you just don’t buy it as well. How

Executive Producer Tania: does that work when it’s wet, but I’ll

Crew Chief Eric: just leave that there. Let’s just leave that. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I guess I, you know, maybe you, I mean, why don’t you just make an app on your phone?

Click the button and it opens. Swipe your phone.

Crew Chief Brad: How do you get in when your phone’s dead?

Executive Producer Tania: You say open butthole and then a charging wire comes out and you can plug your phone in enough juice to [00:07:00] recharge

Crew Chief Brad: open my butthole. No, my butthole. No, no, no, no. My butthole. Can you

Executive Producer Tania: imagine? You’re standing at the charging station?

Somebody doesn’t know what’s going on.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m thinking about the scenario where you go golfing with your boss and then you’re going back to the cars after you’re, you’re, you’re around 18. And then you walk up to your car nonchalantly with your boss parked right next to, and his, uh, S 600 Mercedes, because that’s what he’s going to drive.

And you just walk up and say, casually, Tesla, open butthole. What is your boss going to think?

Crew Chief Eric: He’s going to say, do you have any gray? He’s going to say, he’s going to say, uh,

Crew Chief Brad: okay, you’re going to, this is your last day, goodbye. You know, chances are he’s a 12 year old

Executive Producer Tania: boy on the inside too. So he’d probably like it.

I

Crew Chief Eric: don’t know. [00:08:00] Meanwhile on planet Tesla.

Executive Producer Tania: In other Tesla news, very unfortunate. There was a recent accident. Not too far from my personal stomping grounds where a Tesla crashed into some trees that crash caused explosion, fire, et cetera, the car engulfed in flames. Varying reports. Saying the fire burned for four hours before it was put out versus I don’t know, it was put out immediately and the fire department just there for four hours quenching re ignition of the batteries, blah, blah, blah, regardless of whether it was minutes or four hours.

That thing definitely burned long enough that there was nothing practically left. There was no interior. There was no roof. There was no hood. There were no body panels. I mean, granted they might’ve ripped the doors off and everything and pushed them aside and weren’t seen in the picture, but it was charred.

The mystery of this right now, this happened in a [00:09:00] neighborhood, this happened on a neighborhood street, leaving essentially a dead end, a cul de sac, an S shaped street, not even probably too long, as it was negotiating the first of the curve, the car lost control, ended up in this patch of trees, directly in front of people’s houses.

So obviously people heard the commotion or whatnot and called the fire department and called the police. The mystery of this is There were two people involved in this. Obviously, unfortunately they did not survive. There was a passenger in the front passenger seat, and there was a person in the back seat.

The authorities are very adamant in saying that there was nobody in the driver’s seat. So does that mean that this Tesla was put on autopilot somehow? I don’t know how, cause I don’t know enough about their autopilot system and engaging it somehow got up to a quote. High speed. Okay. And it must’ve been a high enough speed [00:10:00] to careen off the road and then explode into trees because I would hope that the neighborhood speed of 20 miles an hour, if you hit a tree, you wouldn’t burst into flames because every fricking accident would be Chernobyl.

How did that happen? You know, the initial report, you know, the authorities contacting Tesla, et cetera, Elon is being very, very careful. You know, he’s saying that, no, the data that we pulled that autopilot was not engaged, this, that, and the other, I mean, you know, how can that be possible? If there was no, but no, no body found in the driver’s seats, you know, how did this happen?

And these weren’t 20 something year old folks. These were. Older gentlemen, 59, 69, you know, so, you know, if they were 20 year olds, you could, you could argue, Oh yeah, he was in the driver’s seat. He’s showing off. He jumped into the back seat. Oh, look, my car drives itself. I have a hard time believing, you know, a 59 or 69 year old’s going to pull that stunt, I could believe that there are people.

Unfortunately, silly enough to be like, Oh, look at my car. It can drive itself. I’m not [00:11:00] going to sit in the driver’s seat. I don’t know why you do that, because you could still prove my car drives itself and sit in the freaking driver’s seat like a sane, rational person in case something goes wrong. I don’t know.

Maybe. There was someone in the driver’s seat. Maybe they left the driver’s seat after the accident, somehow trying to get out from the back of the car for some reason with the fire and all that. I mean, I don’t know. It’s very strange. It’ll be interesting to see when the, the official black box and all that stuff, you know, other third parties get to see the data to confirm or, or not confirm whether autopilot was on or not.

I mean, this is a very bizarre, tragic accident that didn’t need to happen.

Crew Chief Brad: Nobody’s going to comment on this story. No,

Executive Producer Tania: nothing

Crew Chief Brad: to say.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I don’t, I don’t, I, there’s not much more to say on this. I’m sure more things will develop out of it. It’s, it’s very bizarre, very unfortunate in advertising in such a way that makes it sound like it’s fully autonomous.

And it, again, people, there is no [00:12:00] such thing right now as a fully autonomous personal vehicle out there. Okay. None of the manufacturers have them. They, they are driver assist.

Crew Chief Brad: And it’s not just Tesla, Cadillac, and Volvo. I mean, all these companies are using this, not deceiving marketing, but uh, I think, you know what I’m trying to say.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they, they’re all, they all misleading

Crew Chief Brad: marketing.

Executive Producer Tania: They all claim that they have, you know, the driver assist and all that. But I, I really think Tesla is. been the most negligent in the way that they advertise it, where they very much have always made it sound like it’s this fully autonomous thing. No, it’s not guys.

The other, the other people, and maybe it’s their learnings from Tesla, I don’t think quite go that far. They make it a little bit more clear that it’s. You know, level whatever, and it’s just driver’s aids and, and that’s what they are. You’re still supposed to be in control of the vehicle. You’re not supposed to be reclined back and sleeping.

You should still be paying attention at any rate. Please do not just blindly let your [00:13:00] car that doesn’t know what it’s doing drive down the road because these people unfortunately, you know, lost their own lives. But. This was a neighborhood. Granted, it was, I think, pretty late at night, but what if it wasn’t and there were children out or, you know, a family coming home in their minivan and, you know, you crash into somebody else?

Like, don’t do stupid stuff, people. Public service announcement. We’ve mentioned this before. Tesla profitability is all very confusing.

Crew Chief Eric: Isn’t it though?

Executive Producer Tania: Because they’re quote unquote, we sell so many cars, blah, blah, blah, ooh, our profits are so great. But without personally going through their financial sheet, not the first time, you know, allegedly, you know, most of their profits come from the carbon credit selling that they do and not from the actual car sales.

And so they’ve been selling credits, carbon credits to some of the major manufacturers Stellantis. So, and you know, and others, and not [00:14:00] surprisingly as Stellantis or, you know, Ford or GM or Volkswagen, all these people start generating their own EVs. They’re going to be getting their own credits and they’re going to no longer need to buy off of Tesla.

And Stellantis has already said that they’re going to save themselves some do re mi and pull out of whatever purchasing agreements they have, which we won’t. Cost, I think somewhere near to the tune of 240 million to Tesla that they will lose. So considering apparently first quarter 2021 was something like 533 million pre tax income, now they’re going to lose 240 million.

That’s a pretty significant chunk of profit sheet. Now, if

Crew Chief Eric: you’ve been continuing to follow our sub thread of Unsolved mysteries with respect to Stellantis, which Brad usually prefaces by saying, how the hell can they still maintain 700 horsepower V8s on 400 year old Mercedes chassis? No, no, no,

Crew Chief Brad: no, no. My, I usually say, thank God they can still produce 700 horsepower [00:15:00] V8 monster motors.

But

Crew Chief Eric: this is the reason why they can remember we said they walk in the door and they go, I don’t give a shit about anything. They’re buying these credits from Tesla so they can continue to produce things like the Hellcat. I mean, it all makes sense now. So if what Tanya is saying is true and Chrysler is going back on that or Stellantis rather, that means that might be the death knell for cars.

Like the track Hawk, the Hellcats, the, you know, the demon, all that kind of stuff, whatever’s got that engine, that hand me 700 horsepower hand me in it.

Crew Chief Brad: Why couldn’t they use those credits for their diesels?

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a, that’s a sore, sore subject.

But as we said, months and months ago, as the majors were waiting. To see what happened and begin to tool up and develop their EVs. They’re going to take their pot [00:16:00] shots at Tesla. So what’s coming next on you?

Executive Producer Tania: This question was asked last month because it was like, Hey, what is Mercedes doing? I haven’t heard anything yet.

Well, funny that was asked because they’re coming out in 2022 with their Mercedes Benz EQS, which is going to be their all electric entry into this realm. Brad, you look puzzled.

Crew Chief Brad: Do you mean the Mercedes Volt? Because that’s exactly what it looks like. Mercedes Chevrolet Volt.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll give you that. It does look like a Volt.

It is being labeled a Tesla fighter. I don’t know. I will

Executive Producer Tania: say when I was like, Oh yes, Mercedes. Oh, and then when I saw it, I was like, Oh

Donovan Lara: no, Mercedes, what have you done?

Executive Producer Tania: No, couldn’t you? Oh, really? Maybe it’ll look better in person.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no, it won’t. It looks like, you know what it looks like if you’ve ever been to a sporting event and they’ve got those, uh, the inflatable [00:17:00] flying around drone vehicles.

That’s exactly what it looks like. I expect to see this floating around a Capitals game at the arena someday.

Crew Chief Eric: No, I just want them to get rid of the EQS, or whatever they’re calling it, and put a BLA, so we can just go, What do you drive? I drive a Blah.

Executive Producer Tania: Unfortunately, from its profile, it has some very Oh, Tesla reminiscent lines to it.

And it’s like, come on Mercedes.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: no. And then from the back, I don’t know in the back if the, if the Mercedes emblem wasn’t on there, I think it was Buick, but not even like the Buick of today, which is actually like, that’s a Buick.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s your grandfather’s grandfather’s Buick. But

Executive Producer Tania: this is like 10 years ago.

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t forget, we still got like the Lucid Air and like all these other cars that are back there that are that are chomping at Tesla’s bit, you know, trying to get in there. And so I don’t know, Mercedes, come on. We just talked about the Brits just take a GLA or C Class and dump an EV in it and go boom.

And everybody goes, [00:18:00] Ah, it’s amazing. It’s kind of like the e tron idea, right? It’s like, right. Revolutionize on the design you already have and then retrofit the EV power plant into it. Everybody expects a certain level of design, quality and style from Mercedes. But this thing I’m with you, Brad. It looks like something from GM 15 years ago.

I saw

Crew Chief Brad: basically when it comes to Tesla competition. I say Audi and Porsche winning. They’ve got the best looking Tesla fighters. Especially

Crew Chief Eric: the Tay. I gotta, I gotta tip my hat to the Taycan. It’s way better than the Panamera. From every angle, it’s not bad. You’re kind of like, Hey, we got the four door 911 finally right after 35 years of trying it.

It doesn’t look bad. It’s got good numbers and Porsche. It’s going to take them a minute. Maybe they’re not necessarily concerned with 600 miles of range or whatever, but they’re going to build.

Executive Producer Tania: So I stopped listening to you for half a second. Cause you said GLA, then something else. And if they’re going to go retro, could we like a 300 SL going or even [00:19:00] in like an AMG going all electric?

Like, please, please. Are you listening? That sounds like a

Crew Chief Brad: prime candidate for the electrogenic motor swap.

Crew Chief Eric: I give you that

Executive Producer Tania: too. It’ll be unaffordable, but I would love

Crew Chief Eric: to see it. Oh, no. Absolutely. I’d like to see that in more cars, that’s for sure.

Executive Producer Tania: Without further ado, the uh, Plaid edition of the Model S is finally slated to arrive.

It is happening, and it is going to be the, quote, fastest production car ever. Ever according to Mr. Musk,

Donovan Lara: until the Roadster hits the street,

Executive Producer Tania: until something else. Yeah. I don’t know. Until the lucid air, uh,

Crew Chief Eric: the labor case I say in, I mean, come on,

Executive Producer Tania: this is, well this is the one that, you know, alleged, the thousand horsepower, blah, blah, blah, which I think the lucid air alleges 1100.

So the Lucid Air is supposed to debut, I think, this year. So if it does come out, maybe. That will be the fastest production car ever. Now there was a plaid [00:20:00] plus edition, which was the one I think that got you that extra a hundred horsepower, but that has apparently been canceled because the regular plaid is just so awesome as it is, there is apparently no need for the plus edition, according to Musk.

So they’ve canned that.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. Maybe somebody can answer this. If you’re listening, you know, comment, write us, call us, text us, whatever. When I hear the word plaid. Two things come to mind, Braveheart and boring, right? And not because Braveheart is boring, but plaid is boring to look at. So what is the deal with this plaid name?

Like, what is the significance of this?

Donovan Lara: Maybe, maybe Edson can tell us. He has told me, and my understanding is, I think it’s a space balls reference. Like they go beyond light speed and they go plaid. I think something along those lines. So it’s some kind of. In the know, kind of, which is

Crew Chief Eric: why there’s ludicrous mode and all that other stuff.

Donovan Lara: I might be wrong. It’s something like that though, but I can tell you the, so we do mountain runs. Uh, Edson has a model [00:21:00] three and then we have another friend that has a model S, uh, the performance or. Perfer Monte or whatever they call it. And that car is no joke. I mean, that one is it’s a couple of years old now, but it’s zero to 60 and two, two, and it is just crazy, but I feel like they probably discontinued the plaid plus because of what we were talking about earlier with the roadster that’s going to do zero to 60 and sub 1.

1, although I know they wouldn’t get a full second out of it. You know, at some point you start eating into your own market share there. I think there’s the roadster that does it sub 1. 1 with the cannons. And then otherwise it’s like 1. 8 or something. So.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, you know, Tesla’s lovely. They’ve done a lot to disrupt the car culture and technology and all that.

And that’s wonderful. And that’s great. But for 114, 000, I still want something else. I don’t care if it has a thousand horsepower and does 2. 2 seconds, zero to 60. Like, I want to, you know, it has a thousand horsepower. It costs,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, it has a thousand horsepower. It costs half as much. Challenge your Hellcat.

Just going to put it [00:22:00] out there.

Donovan Lara: Well, that’s a good argument though. I mean, and the argument both ways is, well, you know, and I’ll keep using the Roadster as an example. The Roadster is going to be two 50 and it’s going to smoke any car. There is Bugatti, all of those buying these. Here’s my problem with it though.

All of these cars are not particularly attractive. I think they’re pretty vanilla. So you pull up in a road, sort of LA and they park you in the back because they don’t know any better. Right? So you pull up in your, your hurricane or your guy or your, even, you know, older stuff. And they’re going to go, Oh, wow.

That’s special. You know, even a three 60 Ferrari, which you can get for a quarter of this for half this price. You’re going to be up front. That plaid is going to be in the back somewhere collecting dust.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, honestly, they’re vanilla on the outside, the vanilla on the inside and they’re vanilla. On my butt in the seat, because I’ve driven a model three before, and I felt like I was driving a Nissan Ultima that I got out of the Hertz rental lot.

I mean, other than the fact that if you stop on it, yeah, you get thrown back in the seat because there’s so much torque. Yeah. The [00:23:00] acceleration is ridiculous in an EV, but I don’t know. Maybe I need to drive a different one. But I say you’re just cruising around town. It was no different than anything else.

It felt like a rental car. I wasn’t blown away. I didn’t feel like I was in this luxury for spending tens of thousands

Crew Chief Eric: of dollars. And I’m with Tanya where the Tesla doesn’t give me anything back. It hasn’t convinced me yet that I can get rid of a GTI and have more fun. It’s the fun factor for at least for me.

Donovan Lara: There’s that straight line performance, but there’s not that overall performance that I think, you know, like you said, it was visceral, you know, Tanya. And it’s, to me, that’s what I keep going back to is, yeah, it’s fast in a straight line and yeah, it’s faster than my car, but, uh, you know, I want to hear it, I want to hear that.

I think I’d rather be in a, that Trans Am we talked about earlier, right? You feel like, well, I’m supposed to be going fast. It sounds like I’m going fast. I’m probably doing zero to 16, eight seconds, but man, it sounds good, you know, and it’s smoking and I can smell it when eight seconds was fast.

Crew Chief Eric: Like, wow, it does it in eight seconds.

It’s incredible. We can take the plaid to the next level with the, uh, [00:24:00] Pikes Peak racer, because as we mentioned last year in the attempt at Pikes Peak, you know, we kind of joked about this, there were several episodes where we captured this and reported on it, Randy Pope’s hooked up with unplugged performance, made several Pikes Peaks attempt.

One time it went airborne. They did complete the run up to the sky and all that they are returning. With a modified Tesla plaid edition and are going to attempt the race to the sky yet again, taking to the plaid to the entire next level, probably into the stratosphere, because it’s going to completely launch into orbit.

Donovan Lara: Good on them. That’s awesome. Curious to see how it turns out. I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure Randy is doing it again. I saw a video that he posted a day ago, so that’d be interesting to check out. And there’s a really great show on Motor Trend about last year about them running and wrecking and things.

So it’s pretty cool.

Executive Producer Tania: Boring company. Take that as you will. That’s a

Donovan Lara: real thing,

Executive Producer Tania: right? That’s, that’s called the boring company, but it’s like boring through something. This is the boring company that’s making the underground hyperloop, if you [00:25:00] remember tunnels in Las Vegas, where the Tesla’s were going to ride on skates at high speed, a fully autonomous and zip you through, you know, these underground tubes.

So you could move out Las Vegas without. Walking around in the hundred million degree heat and all the traffic and congestion and all that. So they finally, uh, completed a 1. 5 mile loop and it’s not quite as promised. So yes, as most things, yes. There are these. Tunnels underground. Yes, a Tesla vehicle drives through them, but no, they’re not on whatever these alleged skates were going to be.

No, they’re not self driving and no, they cannot go at high speed. So they are driven and it cannot exceed 35 miles an hour. And it’s basically a car that drives through an

Crew Chief Eric: underground tunnel. So what you’re telling me is Tesla has an Uber service in Vegas right now, and it was replaced by the existing monorail.

[00:26:00] That already does everything you describe taking people from, you know, one place to the other doing a loop and they don’t have to walk or be in, you know, the sun, you know, the way I read it and the way I looked at it, it’s like the scariest small world ride. You could have ever presented to me being trapped in a Tesla with a Johnny cab going around in Las Vegas.

So I’m kind of glad it’s just an uber.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s not done yet. There’s plans for the next segments to be added on. I don’t recall

Crew Chief Eric: all of that. Is super boring.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re claustrophobic, I can’t imagine this is fun, but

Donovan Lara: here’s my issue with it, right? So it’s a mile and a half and it takes you from one side of traffic to the other.

So it’s not like it’s avoiding all of the traffic. So basically you’re just the asshole that cuts line. And a mile and a half to get up in the front, just like the guys that ride down the emergency lane and traffic, I don’t understand the logic here, right? It’s great. You can speed through the tunnel, but you’re still going to stop at the end, which means you’re just going to back up model threes all the way back through that tunnel.

So, [00:27:00]

Crew Chief Eric: because we all know that Vegas is really Disney world for adults. I mean, so it’s just another attraction ride amusement. To add to the amusement park, right? I mean, it’s just whatever. It’s, it’s, it’s a novelty. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, why not, if you have the technology to allegedly make the tunnel boring, way more cost effective than doing something above ground.

See, and this is where the frustrating thing of all this is. It’s like, if you have this technology, why don’t you just Frickin build a subway. Why don’t you build a train that can hold people on a rail that would be autonomous because a lot of the Metro rail systems actually drive themselves. Yes.

There’s a conductor in there to monitor, but for the most part, it’s like a plane. You put them on autopilot and they go and use that technology to bring the cost down and actually move people. Not like this gimmick of throwing a roadster in space to be space junk, this gimmick to like, Oh, the Tesla drives in the tunnel.

Like who gives a crap? How [00:28:00] many people do you fit in? You know what you just described?

Crew Chief Eric: You know what you just described? The monorail. It’s autonomous. And guess what? It’s an EV. It’s already there because we’re, we like recreating the wheel. Okay. That’s what it is. That’s where we’re at right now.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, and the thing is, if they’ve uncovered technology that makes it more cost effective to do it underground safely, and you don’t have to do it above ground and be in the way of putting cranes, blocking traffic, disrupting everything, it’s kind of out of sight.

Like, okay, well, let’s do it in a way that makes sense. Not in the way that’s a gimmick.

Donovan Lara: I’m getting the feeling through this entire episode that Tanya’s not sold on Tesla. I could be wrong. Oh, I mean the entire series of the

Crew Chief Eric: drive thru, I think at this point. I’m

Executive Producer Tania: making enemies. I’m making enemies. I mean.

Crew Chief Eric: As we switch gears, there is some good news in the electrified world.

Executive Producer Tania: More progress being made in terms of electrifying America. So Electrify America has hit [00:29:00] their 600 station mark in trying to electrify America. Electrify America. That’s good. You know, we need that because that’ll help people with range anxiety.

And obviously even without that, we need charging stations. If electric vehicles are going to be more of a thing, people can’t rely on being able to just go back and forth to their home all day. So this is good news. And there’s more companies than just electrify America that are building charging stations and whatnot.

And actually to follow up on this. I know I’m jumping ahead. I hate to be remiss, but Tesla actually announced that they’re opening their charging networks or they’re going to plan to open their charging networks to other EVs.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s if you have the adapter, right? Cause they have a proprietary Connector or whatever, that’s how they’re going to get you.

You got to buy the adapter from Tesla to be compatible. Oh, the Apple model. A hundred percent. Exactly. That’s all. That’s all I knew it was coming.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, it honestly, it doesn’t specify, but that’s a great [00:30:00] point. That very well could be the case. Oh, order your Tesla adapter now for the low, low price of 10 million Bitcoin.

And you too can charge on our ultra fast charging network.

Crew Chief Eric: How many carbon credits? Do I get if I buy the Tesla adapter? They have a glut of those now, right? Cause everybody’s giving them back.

Executive Producer Tania: Moving on. We’d be remiss if we didn’t move on. It’s time to talk about Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh God, here we go.

Executive Producer Tania: So there’s three points to hit here.

And I think it ties back to some things we were already talking about earlier around supply chain issues. Microchip delays, things of that nature. So the Tesla semi truck, was it just me or did that thing drop off the face of the earth? Cause that, that thing was coming. Like I thought five years ago already, it was hot and heavy and orders were made and we were going to make so many of them in crickets.

Which is, let me offend some people, kind of par for the Tesla course, right? Because every time, like, we’re announcing something, it’s always like six years later that it actually comes to fruition. Whatever. [00:31:00] But, you know, that boy who cried wolf gets a little old after a while. So the Tesla’s truck is once again delayed and it’s very unclear as to what the delay is, but it sounds like it is essentially supply chain issues and refocusing kind of what we were talking about earlier with the Ford is they’re refocusing their energy and The supplies that they do have, the semi and the Cybertruck as they both are delayed.

They do kind of talk a little bit about, We believe we remain on track to build our first model Y vehicles in Berlin and Austin in 2021. Well, 2021 is almost over folks. The pace of the respective production ramps will be influenced by the successful introduction of many new product and manufacturing technologies.

ongoing supply chain related challenges and regional permitting. To better focus on these factories and due to the limited availability of battery cells and global supply chain challenges, we have shifted the launch of the semi truck program to 2022. We are also making progress on the industrialization of Cybertruck, [00:32:00] which is currently planned for Austin production subsequent to Model Y.

I mean, it goes hand in hand. The Cybertruck is also delayed. The Cybertruck was supposed to come out this year. It’s supposed to be in production. That’s not happening. That one’s vague too. I would assume the whole we’re shipping the Model Y is part of it. There’s also question as to, are they having problems with the design?

Or,

Crew Chief Eric: or could it be, they got to figure out how to resell those carbon credits that they sold everybody that got returned. Or B, is it because they’re under investigation for Tesla’s hitting emergency vehicles? Let’s unpack that.

Executive Producer Tania: Or before we unpack that, C, they’re seeing how well the F 150 is already putting presales in and they’re like, Hmm, maybe this triangle blob thing polygon from Nintendo 64 days isn’t what people want as a pickup truck.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s specifically why I put 100 deposit. Can

Crew Chief Eric: we get a doi from Brad?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, beauty is in the [00:33:00] eye of the beholder. So, I mean. Those people are all

Crew Chief Eric: blind.

Executive Producer Tania: You like the look of that thing, I guess, to each their own. I mean, I’m not a pickup truck fan, but give me the F 150 all day, every day. You can haul so much

Crew Chief Brad: mulch.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re telling me I have to have a pickup truck, I would like a traditional looking pickup truck. So give me the F 150, give me a Rivian, give me whatever, as long as it looks good. Square

Crew Chief Eric: body Chevy. Dan will get you one tomorrow.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s hot.

Executive Producer Tania: I do not want one. So they are also under investigation right now because of the number of times their Teslas have struck emergency vehicles while operating in the autonomous mode, which they’re still claiming is fully autonomous.

And then also Elon Musk recently tweeted in the last day or so how their autonomous beta testing version, whatever the heck they’re on 9. 2 or something. Eh, might not be that great. He’s like, literally said something to that effect. In my opinion, it’s not so good. Oh, okay. [00:34:00] Yes, that’s what the rest of us know.

Because A, it is not fully autonomous. There’s no such thing yet. There’s no vehicle that you can lay down in the back seat and get to where you’re going without dying. Okay. I mean, you might get there once, but I wouldn’t put my faith in that more than once. But it becomes a

Crew Chief Eric: hearse at that point. You go straight to the funeral.

Executive Producer Tania: Converse into a casket and you’re done, I guess. It’s not like there’s been like hundreds and hundreds of these accidents, but I mean, there’s been like almost like a dozen or so over the last five years, which is more than enough. to make people go why is it always happening when there’s an emergency vehicle on the side of the road with their lights flashing, particularly in night or low light conditions?

What is wrong with this technology that’s not seeing what it should be seeing, right? And I mean, I think it’s Tesla themselves need to investigate this. That’s pretty serious. Often when there’s an emergency vehicle on the side of the road, there is a human being on the side of the road outside of said emergency vehicle.

Crew Chief Eric: Does seem to be a reoccurring [00:35:00] theme, whether it’s police cars, ambulances, et cetera. It’s like the camera system on the Tesla target fixates on those flashing lights. It must freak out the camera in such a way that it causes The thing to become basically like a homing beacon or like a, like a targeted missile.

I mean, it’s just, it’s nuts.

Executive Producer Tania: Something’s happening, blinding something there. I have read, he’s very adamant in it. Tesla’s are only going to be using the camera technology as opposed to other people’s autonomous vehicles are a combination of the camera, radar, LIDAR, all these things, or so my understanding is the, he’s kind of insistent that it’s going to be a hundred percent of cameras.

It’s like, okay, maybe one day, but it doesn’t seem like the camera technology is. Quite as good as the human eye that’s paying attention, plenty of people at the hands of the wheel that have struck emergency vehicles also. So

Crew Chief Eric: I still think the biological alternative, you know, the organics in your head are still far superior to any camera and any computer.

And that’s part

Executive Producer Tania: of the debate too, is just a computer. They’re not sophisticated enough to have that reason [00:36:00] component and to understand and to get the other clues that can warn you about something.

Crew Chief Eric: Not on a computer that small. I mean, yeah, sure. If you got big blue from IBM in the backseat. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, if you’ve got three stories of massive mainframe computers, I’m sure it can be better than the human eye, but yeah, no, at any rate,

Crew Chief Eric: we’d be remiss. If it wasn’t a drive through episode where we didn’t talk about Tesla, that was your best Siri voice yet.

Mark Shank: Yeah, that was pretty good.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank you. I tried Tesla.

So, uh, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a quiet month for Tesla in a way. I mean, the cyber truck still delayed. They’re not doing this. They’re not doing that little roadster. Who knows? It’s still floating in space.

Crew Chief Eric: Hashtag because chips.

Executive Producer Tania: However. They’re still dealing with a little teeny problem with their autopilot and the autopilot hitting parked [00:37:00] emergency vehicles, particularly police cars.

And yet again, another Tesla that is not fully self autonomous, even though they think it is sideswiped the police car, nearly hit the police officer who I think at the time happened to be getting out of the car. So thankfully he wasn’t killed or severely injured. But it’s just adding to the list for the NHTSA to investigate what the heck is going on where the cars are seemingly getting very confused with the combination of it’s always happening in like low light settings.

So this was like early morning. So it was still dark outside and it’s seemingly like. Darkness plus the flashing of the emergency vehicle lights is just, it’s like a fly to the electric bug zapper.

And they’re just, they’re just going, they’re just going and, you know, again, the morons. Offense or no offense. I don’t care because you’re not paying attention. What are you doing that you’re [00:38:00] letting your car sideswipe a parked vehicle? I’m just going to leave it there.

Mark Shank: I can’t believe I’m falling in the role of Tesla apologist.

I’m definitely not one, but it doesn’t make national news when anybody else sideswipes a cop that’s pulled over on the side of the road. And usually they don’t pull over very far. Sometimes they do that defensively to try and protect the car in front of them. They Hang their ass out over the line or whatever to

Executive Producer Tania: right.

And in a lot of states, it’s illegal for you to stay in the lane adjacent to the pulled over emergency vehicle. And if you cannot exit that lane, you have to reduce your speed by like 50 percent or something. They do definitely need to program something into their autonomy that would move the car in the opposite direction.

Not towards the,

Crew Chief Eric: it would just sideswipe the car in the lane next to him. So what the fair

Mark Shank: enough, but it doesn’t make national news when a Ford escape does it, right?

Executive Producer Tania: I think the problem is it’s not, it’s not so much Tesla. It’s so much that it’s always the car is in self driving mode. That’s always the common

Crew Chief Eric: [00:39:00] denominator.

Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Because if it was just like, Oh, dumb ass, Tesla driver was driving and texting and they sideswiped a car. Yes. That’s no different than Ford Explorer driver. Dumbass was texting lights, white car car. You know, when you’re somebody like Tesla, that’s claiming how awesome their self driving capabilities are and they’re fully autonomous, you’re putting a target on your back.

And you’re making it such that you’re going to be the attention of every little thing that happens because you’re claiming you’re something that you really aren’t.

Crew Chief Eric: See Mark, this is the lesson we all learn about the drive through. Remember I mentioned in our, in our pre session, we just don’t go there with the Tesla.

You let Tanya do her thing. You let her rant, let her get it out of her system.

Mark Shank: It’s like, I haven’t heard the actual empirical argument. Yeah, it’s pretty simple. Insurance companies ensure all these different cars. How many payouts do they make relative to mile driven on these cars? Autonomous driving, no autonomous driving.

Is it doing [00:40:00] better or worse than other expensive sedan? I haven’t seen anybody release that data set. I don’t know that. I mean, obviously they have the data. They absolutely have the data. You know, I haven’t seen any, any news around that. I mean, certainly what do they call it? Autonomous level three or whatever.

It’s, it’s a very dangerous point where it’s, it’s hard for humans. It’s hard to have the discipline to pay attention. It really is. So you either turn it off. So you have to pay attention all the time. Or you try to have the discipline to pay attention the entire time while you’re also kind of screwing around, because what else are you going to do?

Crew Chief Eric: I was going to say it’s called driving, but I mean, I’m not going to open that. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I don’t disagree with you that we don’t have the numbers and there’s a lot of unsubstantiated claims that just say that there’s far less accidents with. You know, the self driving the set and the other and all these nannies and aides that lane assist and all that stuff.

And, and then that might be very true because I do think there is a subset of the population that is incapable of clearly keeping their focus on a single task at hand, which would be driving. And some [00:41:00] of these aides are beneficial to the people around them to keep them safe, but. I just get very annoyed by,

Mark Shank: I love the way you worded that,

Crew Chief Eric: right?

That was awesome.

Mark Shank: Are you a lawyer? I have no idea what you want in real life. That was very, that was very specific wording.

Executive Producer Tania: I just get irritated by the ignorance or arrogance of people, the self driving, like stop calling it fully autonomous. It’s not, we’re not there yet. It does not exist. It’s full autonomous.

It’s called a monorail. It’s something like a rollercoaster where the thing is tied to a track. That is full autonomous, but we’re not yet at a point where we can just take a nap in the driver’s seat, roll the seat back, put on Netflix and chill, and not kill somebody going down the road. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you’re on a country road and you want to go risk your life?

And drive off a cliff or into a tree, by all means, live your best life for as long as you can. I don’t know, don’t put other people’s lives unnecessarily in danger. And, and maybe one day we’ll get there, [00:42:00] but we’re not. And yeah, you know, it’s only like 11 accidents in the grand scheme, sure. But it’s a black eye in the whole autonomous vehicle thing.

And

Mark Shank: I hate the way that they face the market with it, where it’s like, if they were just going to the market where they’re like, yeah, accidents are happening and they do happen, they will happen and pay attention, assholes. Uh, use the future responsibly, but instead they react so defensively and so aggressively against whoever bat, you know, whoever raises concerns like, Hey, there appears to be a pattern to these accidents.

If they were more just transparent about the challenges with the current software, I think they would get a lot further.

Crew Chief Eric: I want to say this and I don’t want to belabor the point, but the one thing that I take from all this is I approach it the opposite way. You know, I was jokingly saying, hang up and drive.

You talked about, you know, being respectful of the future and the technology and stuff like that. When I look at driving, I think about the era in which we came up as drivers. Again, petrol heads of a certain age, we were the [00:43:00] last of the analog generation. So we didn’t have a lot of tech, but we were early adopters of technology.

But I see driving still as a freedom, as a privilege, things like that. And I don’t want to get into that debate, but what I also see it as is that moment, those 20 minutes, those 40 minutes, whatever it might be, where I get to disconnect from the grid. I don’t have to think about work. I don’t want to answer emails.

I don’t want to see your text message. I just want to turn on the radio, you know, my mixtape cruising in my five. Oh, with my carburetor and my hand crank and get where I’m going and just have a moment of decompression. And driving gives you that opportunity. So think about it that way, disconnect for just a moment, even if it’s to go to the local target or drop your kid off at school, put the phone down and just focus on driving and actually driving becomes very much second nature and you do relax.

It’s, it’s not a high stress thing. As long as you’re situationally aware, we talk about that a lot. In racing, keeping your eyes up and just [00:44:00] being aware of what’s going on. But you do kind of let the rest of the world fade to gray. And it’s a moment of clarity that I don’t think we can get or harvest in a lot of other ways these days.

Executive Producer Tania: Unfortunately, we could tangent on that train of thought for a long time. Cause I flat out, there’s people that have said they just hate to drive. So for a person that just. Does not want to drive or be positive with it. Then get an Uber, right? You’re not, you’re not going to, you’re not going to sell them on it.

It’s their moment to disconnect because they don’t want to disconnect. They don’t even want to be behind the wheel. Like if they could have somebody else driving them, they would. Right. So that’s for those people. Yeah. Self driving when it actually happens will be wonderful.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s, uh, let’s switch gears.

Executive Producer Tania: We’ve hit on this already a couple times, electric cars and police cars in apparently West Virginia. The city of Nitro, West Virginia. I didn’t know such a city existed. What a fancy name, which is near Charleston for those who are geographically not challenged for West Virginia. Has bought a Tesla Model 3.

To be used as a police cruiser. [00:45:00] Hold on. I got questions. And they spent an additional 10, 000 on top of the 40, 000 to buy it, to outfit it with the light sirens and additional police equipment,

Crew Chief Eric: the

Mark Shank: sport model. Then

Crew Chief Eric: none of that is important based on the previous topic. We were just talking about, we have a Tesla.

That’s a police car with lights and sirens. And we’re going to use it on patrol day, night, weather, withstanding, does it just like implode?

Mark Shank: The second autopilot’s engaged, it actually enclapses in on itself in, in like a black hole and it just, it disappears.

Crew Chief Eric: And the police officer becomes like quantum leap.

It’s all downhill from there.

Mark Shank: He now goes backwards in time to right histories and wrongs.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, my goodness. I think that’s all we need to say about that. I just let’s follow this and see where it goes and how long this car actually lasts.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, my biggest [00:46:00] question with all these electric police cars, and I believe we’re going to hit on.

On this topic, actually later, what do you do in a high speed chase? Like if you’re out running the cop, I mean, you probably could get away with it now because you only got to outlast the battery charge.

Crew Chief Eric: And I tell you what, a Tesla full tilt, I’ve done this on track and I wrote an article about it. It doesn’t last a half an hour at wide open.

We’ll call it wide open throttle.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, then you got to consider the battery was probably not fully charged to begin with.

Crew Chief Eric: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I mean, you can’t outrun Motorola. I’m not condoning any of this, but

Executive Producer Tania: you can outrun those batteries. I’m not saying you should outrun the cost, but we know it happens.

It’ll be a Florida man story coming up. I mean, it’s fine. It’ll be West Virginia, man. The last bit of. Tesla news is interesting and not necessarily indicative of anything electric. co they issued an article that says Tesla obtains patent on its wild idea to use lasers as [00:47:00] windshield wipers. And there’s just.

So much here. One could unpack.

Mark Shank: This is definitely Austin powers, like sharks with fricking lasers on their head.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. And you need to put one

Mark Shank: of those sharks, like, uh, like it’s a windshield wiper.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s all very confusing and the take that it could just be that they came up with this idea and they’re patenting it because that’s what you do.

If you think you have an idea, put a patent on it. So nobody else. Can take it. And you might not yet know what you’re actually going to use it for, but they framed it in this manner that really makes no sense. Talk about it specifically for debris on your windshield. So think dead bug, mud, bird doo doo, if you will.

I see it all falling apart very quickly.

Mark Shank: So my windshield wipers are misaligned. So my car blinded me, then my windshield melted from the heat.

Executive Producer Tania: And then the car got confused by the laser beam lights that were flashing at night during the rain. And then you [00:48:00] crashed.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. It’s obvious and very apparent that the patent and trade office is full of bad ideas, and this is just yet another one on that list.

Mark Shank: I would have thought they’d use it for heat and like some kind of anti fog. It’s to

Crew Chief Eric: give you like LASIK and cataracts. We’re

Mark Shank: going to burn dirt off of your windshield. That just can’t be efficient. That can’t be energy efficient. It

Executive Producer Tania: can’t be efficient. And it sounds like they would not have a traditional windshield wiper blade going across the windshield.

It almost reads that way, but that would be impossible because what do you do during a torrential downpour? There’s no, there’s no amount of lasers that are going to clear the water. And to do it, the laser would be so powerful that yes, it would burn your retina. It looks like a freaking

Crew Chief Eric: like Calvin Harris midnight rave.

It’s like, Lights everywhere, laser beams, and shit. You

Executive Producer Tania: might as well get

Crew Chief Eric: out

Executive Producer Tania: the

Crew Chief Eric: glow sticks

Executive Producer Tania: at that point. I mean, [00:49:00] it’s gonna, it’s gonna be a travesty. Though it does beg the memory, the Cybertruck does not have windshield wipers, I believe. No, it has that,

Crew Chief Eric: it

Executive Producer Tania: has that Etch a Sketch

Crew Chief Eric: thing, where it moves, does some crazy thing on the, on the windshield.

Absolutely mental. And the Cybertruck was delayed.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe it was delayed for laser beams. Chips. Because

Crew Chief Eric: laser beams.

Mark Shank: The Model X was the Falcon doors, and the Cybertruck will be the Stupid windshield.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess we got to move on since we’re already talking, you know, we’re talking about these new EVs.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, nothing bad this month.

We already knew that Elon moved to Austin, um, personally or a year or so ago, I guess now,

Donovan Lara: and he lives in one of these solar Einhoven things.

Executive Producer Tania: No, there’s too many round edges on, on the, uh, The glass won’t break if you

Crew Chief Eric: throw something at it.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. There’s not, they didn’t put the laser beams on the windshield.

So to wipe the water away. Yeah. So he personally moved to Texas to be closer to SpaceX and all this other [00:50:00] stuff. I’m sure he had issued, you know, other issues being angry at California. It’s been recently announced that he is going to move the headquarters. Out of Palo Alto to Austin. Nice.

Donovan Lara: It was every other Californian.

Executive Producer Tania: Along with every other big California company. And part of it is citing the fact that California is just ridiculous in different ways in terms of just congestion and cost of living, you know, aside from the very stringent regulations. that they have in place and whatnot. So, uh, it’ll be interesting to see how happy those California workers will be to move to Texas.

They don’t plan on shutting down the facilities they have in California. If anything, they’re, you know, alleging to ramp up production in the, in the manufacturing plants there.

Crew Chief Eric: So what I am hopeful here. On this one is Tesla moves to Austin, Steve Wynn owns DeLorean, which is also in Humboldt, Texas, not too far.

They get together and we get an EV DeLorean. This is what I’m waiting for, people.

Donovan Lara: The way it should [00:51:00] have always been.

Crew Chief Eric: A hundred thousand percent. But in other Tesla news,

Executive Producer Tania: there’s another drag race. And it’s this 14 minute video that you got to fast forward to the nine minute mark. And then again, to like the, I don’t know which minute mark to see anything remotely interesting, but it’s between a thousand horsepower McLaren, whatever the hell it is.

And a Tesla plaid S version blue. They did three runs. They did a standstill drag race run, which the Tesla obliterated the McLaren, which often no one’s

Crew Chief Eric: surprised. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, I, and it was to no one’s surprise that was. Present for this drag racing. I mean, off the line, electrics have the advantage. We already know this.

Then they did a rolling start drag due to the fact that of course, McLaren’s going to suck off a dead stop line and the Tesla still really obliterated it. And then their third one was a rolling start with advantage to the McLaren. So I think it started with however many feet [00:52:00] ahead of the Tesla and the Tesla still caught up basically.

And I think it was. Ended up being like a nose to nose kind of finish. Hey, I got to add

Crew Chief Eric: to the funny part of the end of this. Not only did the Tesla outrun the McLaren, it also apparently has better brakes.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, because the guy in the McLaren must’ve had a code brown moment. Cause essentially he ran out of racing.

He ran out of runway or whatever they were drag racing on. He ran out of drag racing. And apparently literally managed to stop the McLaren an inch from hitting like a fence or a wall or something. The barrier at the end of the trash strip, you did some late breaking.

Crew Chief Eric: I have to say, I mean, you know, we talked about Ken Block earlier.

Obviously he’s sold off Hoonigan. This is another Hoonigan video. He’s kind of distanced himself from that, even though he’s. Kind of still affiliated or whatever. It’s still Hoonigan stuff. It’s whatever you’re right. The first like seven minutes is all about like cleaning products and, Oh, isn’t my car cool?

And all this kind of thing. It’s, it’s whatever. I looked at the clickbait, you know, McLaren [00:53:00] versus plaid, and this is the same as the Corvette one they did, which the Corvette also got obliterated. It was some like 2000 horsepower, you know, nitrous injected quad turbo Corvette or whatever. And it was like, all right, yep.

The Tesla wins every time. And it went great. Hey, look yet another story. Stupid drag race between a Tesla and something else that’s going to get crushed. But you’re right. That ending made the whole video worth it. So I just tell you guys to skip like the first 13 minutes and just watch that last poll because it’s the best.

Donovan Lara: After I lost interest after about five seconds, because like you said, there’s a bajillion of these. I had an idea. That’s not drag racing anymore, right? Nobody cares. I want to see a Triumph TR7 and a Fiat X19 drag race. Yes. Old school stuff. You think that video was long? It was long. It was long. Wait till they figure out how to keep those running long enough to get to the end of the that’s the drag race I want to see what do they smell like like fire and oil and

Crew Chief Eric: they’re running rich that’s for sure there’s other Tesla news This month, which it’s kind of [00:54:00] funny, but also kind of scary.

Executive Producer Tania: Uh, you know, honestly, this is more, I feel like sensational click baby than anything else. The way the headline reads Tesla tempted drivers with insane mode and now is tracking them to judge safety. Experts say it’s ludicrous. Honestly, that title has nothing to do with the point that’s trying to be made here.

And so what’s happening is Tesla’s doing another beta test of their, you know, full autonomous driving bullshit that. Again, even Elon is admitting doesn’t really work yet. Okay. It’s not full self driving. They’re doing like another beta rollout and they want to do actual testing with Tesla owners, as opposed to just dummy vehicles going around.

And so he’s created this vetting process where he’s created this checklist, if you will, of, Grading scale for judging who will be allowed to beta test this new software update. So essentially he is tracking how people are driving. It’s a very [00:55:00] stringent grading scale to the extreme of any kind of like hard breaking, you get docked points.

And so you have to get like a perfect hundred, hundred score or however your scale is. To be allowed to beta test a new full self driving software. And he’s doing this because he only wants safe, trustworthy people to be trying this out, to be the Guinea pig, if you will. So it’s not so much that he’s trying to spy on everybody and, and, and track their every moves and control their driving habits.

Not to say that things don’t morph into other things, but it’s supposed to be this vetting process for people to pilot the new beta software. And honestly, this isn’t new. If people are going to get all in there, Oh my god, everybody’s spying on me, meh, meh, meh. Guess what? Who was it? Progressive did this already?

Like, Five, 10 years ago, where they gave you that little sensor to plug in OBD port and they were tracking how you drive and you were supposed to save on your car insurance and all this bullshit. So guess what people it’s already been out there. I’ve been there, done that. Let’s not go conspiracy theory.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:56:00] Ancient automotive enthusiasts contend that it is Skynet at the end of the day, but Donovan, go ahead.

Donovan Lara: How many ways can we rip this part of the article apart? Right? It’s just Um, first of all, experts say it’s ludicrous. That was, that’s obviously a Tesla mode, right? So either somebody scanned an article and they’re like, Oh, there’s a little good, let’s give somebody the fastest mode in the car.

And if they don’t drive it safely, then we’re going to do what?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think it even has anything to do with the mode in the car. It’s just nowhere. Have I seen where it says the beta is being tested in the cars with the ludicrous mode and whatnot. It’s just a thousand Tesla owners. are going to get to pilot the new software and he’s vetting them by tracking how they’re driving.

Crew Chief Eric: So, so two things on that. First of all, all those dudes from Hoonigan that we just talked about, they’re out there. Second of all, I’m wondering, can you game the system by using the current, we’re going to put air quotes around autonomous driving, you know, level, whatever. To get the perfect score. So you’re actually using the current system to qualify yourself for the new system.[00:57:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Probably not. Cause I assume he’s able to track that.

Donovan Lara: We definitely need Edson for these particular articles, but, you know, I don’t know if you guys have ever noticed, like every time Tesla article you read is something they’re doing wrong or something that’s great. And then you, you get in the actual cars and realize they’re doing it all right.

And this article looks just like another attempt to twist it. Tony, like you were saying around the, make it seem like. Oh, they’re at it again. They’re doing something dumb there. You know, you don’t want to buy a Tesla. I don’t understand why everybody has the hate for the Teslas, but I don’t know. I think Edson Paul’s, we keep calling him Edson on GarageRat, you know, showed me things like his in his model three, where, you know, there was a feature somebody asked for, Hey, can we get these cameras now?

And I’m going to butcher it for the Tesla owners out there, but. There’s like the rear view. And then there’s like the corner ones that weren’t normally on and somebody tweeted it or something. And Musk was like, Oh, that’s a great idea. Sent the software upgrade and boom. Now they’re there. He also thought

Crew Chief Eric: that open butthole was a good idea.

I mean, come on now.

Donovan Lara: Open butthole. Yeah. You don’t remember that? [00:58:00]

Crew Chief Eric: You open the gas tank voice command, you say open butthole, and then it’s. Open my butthole, like open the trunk or something ridiculous. He thinks everything’s a good idea,

Donovan Lara: but still, you know, the fact that we’re quick to market with something, somebody made a suggestion.

That’s a great idea. Let’s do it. That to me makes Tesla the winner in the automotive market. So, but it’s also

Crew Chief Eric: kind of scary too, that your car is controlled by over the air software update. So they can render you useless. I also heard about something that came across my desk earlier about. That Tesla is also talking about the cars will put in their own orders for maintenance parts.

Can you imagine if the car ordered its own set of tires suddenly, and then you got docked, you know, 1200 bucks because it’s the only tire that’s available for Tesla. No, thank you. There’s certain parts of that I want to be disconnected from.

Donovan Lara: There’s all kinds of, and you should get Paul in here and do maybe just a spin.

Specific Tesla interview, but there’s all kinds of things about eventually like he can’t buy his car. My understanding is he can only lease it because they plan to have this back as a fleet later automated. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: the Ferrari pyramid scheme.

Donovan Lara: Well, it’s a, [00:59:00] it’s a, they can basically have them as automated Ubers down the road and they’ll be able to go, you can send it, pick up your dry, clean, all kinds of crazy stuff.

So I don’t know. It’s, I think it’s pretty interesting, but

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll take that 84 GTI you were talking about. Me too. That’s all I need.

Executive Producer Tania: But, but, but what about the fact that this wasn’t breaking news on every major news outlet and thrown in your face every two seconds? I mean, if this had happened to Tesla, we would have been hearing about it for weeks and weeks, and it would have been the hot news on every major news outlet and on TV, it would have broken in as, you know, Breaking news in the middle of, you know, Netflix and binge.

I mean, what the heck, come on. Why is it always Tesla?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we already know that they burned down in parking garages, right? We’ve seen that time and time again. So, I mean, is that really news anymore?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, you know what I’d like to address because it kills me. You want to know why everyone makes a big deal about Tesla is because when you put a bullseye on your back, that’s what’s going to happen.

When you’re [01:00:00] selling Cubix or Cognia. At the price of diamonds. Yeah, people are going to pay attention to you. And maybe it’s my perception, but I don’t think Chevy, Ford, any of them have ever pretended that their cars are perfect and that they don’t have recalls and they don’t have issues. They don’t sit there saying that their cars are the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.

So if you act like you’re the hottest thing and then you’re using Home Depot to, you know, Build your cars. Of course, you’re going to get more attention. I mean, I know I’m probably offending people when I say that, but it’s just like, you know, I don’t know, whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a shift in the status quo, I suppose.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 [01:01:00] 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization. And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

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Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction and Sponsorships
• 00:33 We Would Be Remiss: Tesla’s Latest Gimmick
• 03:55 Tesla’s New Door Handles: Swipe or Swipe Not?
• 08:02 Tesla Autopilot Accident: A Tragic Mystery
• 13:23 Tesla’s Financial Puzzle: Carbon Credits and Profits
• 16:02 Tesla’s Competition: Mercedes and More
• 19:16 Plaid Edition Model S: The Fastest Production Car?
• 24:45 The Boring Company: A Not-So-Hyperloop
• 28:47 Electrify America: Expanding the Charging Network
• 31:03 Tesla’s Truck Delays and Supply Chain Issues
• 31:56 Cybertruck and Model Y Production Challenges
• 33:28 Autonomous Driving and Safety Concerns
• 35:22 Tesla’s Camera-Only Approach to Autonomy
• 36:22 Tesla’s Public Perception and Media Coverage
• 36:50 Tesla’s Autopilot Incidents and Investigations
• 39:32 Debate on Autonomous Driving and Human Attention
• 49:55 Tesla’s Move to Austin and Future Plans
• 51:05 Tesla’s Drag Race Dominance
• 54:20 Tesla’s New Beta Testing and Safety Tracking
• 01:00:43 Final Thoughts and GTM Information