Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On today's episode, Tesla's chief designershows off a Matt Black cyber truck.
Elon Tell's staff at Gigeberlin that thenew twenty five K car will be built
in Germany and Tesla is testing theuse of AI assistant Grock in their vehicles.
On November fourth, Tesla chief designerFranz von Holshausen was spotted driving around
(00:20):
southern California and stopping into at leastone event in a cyber truck with a
new type of visual mod, aMatte black rap. Throughout this year,
we have seen Tesla staff driving aroundcyber trucks with wraps of various designs,
mostly different types of camo, butalso some very interesting graffiti inspired looks,
and of course the joke wraps madeto look like competitor trucks like the Ford
(00:44):
F one fifty Lightning. But MattBlack is eye catching in a different way.
It's certainly a different look from theusual stainless steel design. But fans
of the cyber truck have been speculatingabout an all black paint job or wrap
for quite some time now, notleast of which because von Holshausen himself has
remarked that early renders of the vehiclewere done up in a black finish to
(01:07):
showcase some variation on the look,and it definitely looks interesting. The matt
blackfinish has the appeal of tacty coolaccessories and frankly coding. The cyber truck
in this sort of wrap makes itlook a lot more like something Batman would
drive. It definitely cuts down onthe glare that Tesla engineers have been busy
trying to eliminate from the stainless steelfinish, and it makes the lights stand
(01:30):
out just a little more aggressively,jokes Aciety. It really gives the cyber
truck a more sleek appearance, notto mention that a black rap would be
a much better canvas for that graffitistyle pinstriping and decal work we saw about
a month ago. Unfortunately, noteveryone was so impressed with the new fit,
as some attendees of the weekend eventnoticed that not only was the black
(01:53):
rap applied poorly with bubbles and wrinklesin several noticeable places, the cyber truck
von Holsausen chose to drive around wasclearly not made to modern testless standards.
Fenders were hanging at audit angles,the back bumper was misaligned, and attendees
reported seeing gaps in the body panelsthat you could stick a whole finger through.
(02:13):
Now, there could be a numberof reasons why this particular cyber truck
looked like this, but the simplestanswer is just that von Holsausen was excited
to show off the matte black rap, had it hastily applied to an older
prototype, and drove off to stokesome local hype. And considering this is
really the first instance of visibly shoddyworkmanship on a cyber truck we've heard of
(02:35):
so far, it's more likely thatis the case than anything more alarming.
In addition to the cool new rap, von Holsausen reportedly also showed off a
bit of the all wheel steering capabilitiesof the truck, something we can see
the cyber Truck team testing in thisvideo from Joe Tetmeier on November first.
The ability to steer with both frontand rear wheels and crab drive is a
(02:57):
big feature for the cyber truck.It could help get the vehicle out of
some tighter spots, but we haven'treally seen any clear testing of this ability.
For some time before Joe dropped thisvideo on us. Both this video
and von Holshausen's weekend drive are sightingsthat we've gotten used to over the past
couple of months in the run upto cyber Truck's first delivery date, which
is expected to be November thirtieth.But while most people are excited, there
(03:23):
have been some rumblings amongst the communityever since Tesla's Q three earnings call,
where CEO Elon Musk tempered the expectationsof some investors by updating them on the
facts of cyber Truck's ramp up,stating that it might take some time to
actually build up to any sort offinancially stable production rate. But on a
(03:43):
recent podcast aired on October thirty first, Elon said that we are aiming to
make about two hundred thousand a yearat volume production, which is roughly in
line with his previous statements about thecurrent capabilities of the Giga Texas facility where
the cyber truck is going to beproduced. The ramp up won't be as
quick as Tesla would like due tothe complexity of the vehicle and the difficulty
(04:05):
of the manufacturing process. Musk hasbeen very careful to emphasize that ever since
the earnings call, but the hopeis that in twelve to eighteen months,
Tesla will have hit volume production andthe company can look forwards to increasing that
even more. Back in May duringthe annual shareholders meeting, Elon mentioned that
(04:25):
Tesla would be attempting to get theproduction of cybertruck to anywhere between two hundred
and fifty thousand and five hundred thousandunits per year. That's actually not much
more than the initial ramp up willbe able to make, so it looks
like Tesla should be able to hitthose goals. More importantly, though,
it seems that people are just gettingready to get their hands on a cyber
(04:46):
truck and play with the options likethis new Matt Black wrap. There's been
no word on when exactly these newoptions will be available, but it is
good to see Tesla showing them offso confidently. Maybe they'll even have a
few options ready. By the endof November, it's official Tesla's new next
generation car will be produced in theirfacility in Germany. On November three,
(05:10):
Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited the Gigiberlinfactory to deliver the good news. In
the midst of public debate about thenext construction phase of the facility. Just
last week we covered the first fewopen forum discussions with local residents and regulatory
groups where the water intake of themassive factory was discussed and ultimately approved.
(05:30):
Gigiberlin's huge expansion has been slowly simmeringin the background of Tesla projects all throughout
the year, but once these publicdebates are over, construction can begin.
A large portion of this expansion projectwill see floor space in the vehicle production
area almost double, as well asan entirely new battery production facility built on
the property. Most of the buzzaround this expansion has been directed at the
(05:56):
increase in regular vehicle production it willaccommodate, but now we know there's another
reason as well as why it's happeningright now. Announced back at the Investor's
Day event in March, Tesla's nextgeneration vehicle platform has been marketed as a
cheap, utilitarian option. Being pricedat roughly twenty five thousand dollars, This
(06:17):
vehicle will not only allow Tesla tocorner the market on affordable evs, but
it'll give the company an opportunity tofinally develop their long awaited Robotaxi idea,
a completely automated self driving taxi.Originally, the idea was to start production
of this new platform at Gigamexico,but some snags with local infrastructure and some
(06:40):
wariness with global interest rates have forcedTesla executives to slow down on their completion
of that particular facility and move theproject to Giga Texas, where most of
the company's best engineers and design personnelare currently stationed for the cybertruck project.
The announcement from Elon doesn't mean thatthe vehicle will be moving again. By
all accounts, it looks like designand prototyping and initial production at least will
(07:05):
still be taking place at Giga Texas. But it makes a lot of sense
to have another facility ready to actuallybuild these cars, and Tesla seems to
have chosen Germany. That is alittle bit of an odd choice considering how
well a smaller, cheaper compact carwould do in a place like Shanghai,
but that facility is already the busiestfacility in Tesla's roster, So maybe the
(07:30):
company is considering importing vehicles to theirfactory in China, which would be a
novel change of pace for them,as Shanghai usually exports parts and vehicles to
the other facilities. This could alsobe another way to justify investing more money
into the European market, where asmaller EV would also perform well. It's
anyone's guess as to why Tesla madethis choice specifically, but it looks like
(07:53):
the Germany crew is going to havethe next five or more years packed with
a factory expansion, the start ofbattery production, and now the creation of
a whole new vehicle production line.Now that's job security. The start of
November has been a busy time forTesla announcements, as CEO Elon Musk announced
via a post on x dot comthat Tesla Vehicles would be testing the use
(08:16):
of Groc, an AI assistant softwaremade by one of Elon's other startups,
XAI. The guy really likes xIf you hadn't caught onto that yet,
the original find was actually made bya Tesla enthusiast named Chuck Cook, who
spotted a post that Elon had liked, saying that Tesla's would be running with
Groc as their AI assistant, andas usual, Elon poked his head into
(08:39):
the thread quickly to confirm that,yes, if Tesla's onboard computers could handle
the program, they will be runningit and using the program's capabilities to run
the most usable inference compute on Earth. Now, what does inference compute mean,
because that's a bit of a mouthful. Inference in an AI context is
the process of running live data throughan AI model in order to make a
(09:03):
prediction or solve problems and complete tasks. What Elon is suggesting here is that
if the onboard computer of Tesla vehiclescan handle the load of such a hefty
program, each individual Tesla equipped withGROC should be able to aid other vehicles
on the local network with live navigationand problem solving tasks. Which is pretty
cool, and it follows with whatTesla and the Elon have been talking about
(09:26):
since they debuted the new FSD directionback in March for the Investor's Day presentations.
Increased usage of their Dojo supercomputer willhelp them train their AI models,
which in turn will support each otherwith live data. Using GROC seems to
just be the next step in realizingthat goal. That's the biggest part of
what GROC can bring to the Teslanetwork, But there are likely some quality
(09:48):
of life things too. According toXai, Groc is designed to be a
user friendly model with a humorous personalitybased on Elon's favorite sci fi series,
they Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,so you can probably expect your new onboard
AI to call you a hoopy foodat least once. Groc so far has
(10:09):
been offered to Premium plus users ofx formerly Twitter as Xai's first ever software
release, and the company has saidthat the Tesla integration will likely go through
x dot Com, since Elon seemskeen on making that site a whole unified
system. If the integration is successful, it looks like Elon is intending for
Groc to completely take over the functionsof the current voice command system on board
(10:33):
Tesla vehicles, so expect testing overthe next few months to really fine tune
that before it starts rolling out tousers.
On today's episode, Tesla's chief designershows off a Matt Black cyber truck.
Elon Tell's staff at Gigeberlin that thenew twenty five K car will be built
in Germany and Tesla is testing theuse of AI assistant Grock in their vehicles.
On November fourth, Tesla chief designerFranz von Holshausen was spotted driving around
(00:20):
southern California and stopping into at leastone event in a cyber truck with a
new type of visual mod, aMatte black rap. Throughout this year,
we have seen Tesla staff driving aroundcyber trucks with wraps of various designs,
mostly different types of camo, butalso some very interesting graffiti inspired looks,
and of course the joke wraps madeto look like competitor trucks like the Ford
(00:44):
F one fifty Lightning. But MattBlack is eye catching in a different way.
It's certainly a different look from theusual stainless steel design. But fans
of the cyber truck have been speculatingabout an all black paint job or wrap
for quite some time now, notleast of which because von Holshausen himself has
remarked that early renders of the vehiclewere done up in a black finish to
(01:07):
showcase some variation on the look,and it definitely looks interesting. The matt
blackfinish has the appeal of tacty coolaccessories and frankly coding. The cyber truck
in this sort of wrap makes itlook a lot more like something Batman would
drive. It definitely cuts down onthe glare that Tesla engineers have been busy
trying to eliminate from the stainless steelfinish, and it makes the lights stand
(01:30):
out just a little more aggressively,jokes Aciety. It really gives the cyber
truck a more sleek appearance, notto mention that a black rap would be
a much better canvas for that graffitistyle pinstriping and decal work we saw about
a month ago. Unfortunately, noteveryone was so impressed with the new fit,
as some attendees of the weekend eventnoticed that not only was the black
(01:53):
rap applied poorly with bubbles and wrinklesin several noticeable places, the cyber truck
von Holsausen chose to drive around wasclearly not made to modern testless standards.
Fenders were hanging at audit angles,the back bumper was misaligned, and attendees
reported seeing gaps in the body panelsthat you could stick a whole finger through.
(02:13):
Now, there could be a numberof reasons why this particular cyber truck
looked like this, but the simplestanswer is just that von Holsausen was excited
to show off the matte black rap, had it hastily applied to an older
prototype, and drove off to stokesome local hype. And considering this is
really the first instance of visibly shoddyworkmanship on a cyber truck we've heard of
(02:35):
so far, it's more likely thatis the case than anything more alarming.
In addition to the cool new rap, von Holsausen reportedly also showed off a
bit of the all wheel steering capabilitiesof the truck, something we can see
the cyber Truck team testing in thisvideo from Joe Tetmeier on November first.
The ability to steer with both frontand rear wheels and crab drive is a
(02:57):
big feature for the cyber truck.It could help get the vehicle out of
some tighter spots, but we haven'treally seen any clear testing of this ability.
For some time before Joe dropped thisvideo on us. Both this video
and von Holshausen's weekend drive are sightingsthat we've gotten used to over the past
couple of months in the run upto cyber Truck's first delivery date, which
is expected to be November thirtieth.But while most people are excited, there
(03:23):
have been some rumblings amongst the communityever since Tesla's Q three earnings call,
where CEO Elon Musk tempered the expectationsof some investors by updating them on the
facts of cyber Truck's ramp up,stating that it might take some time to
actually build up to any sort offinancially stable production rate. But on a
(03:43):
recent podcast aired on October thirty first, Elon said that we are aiming to
make about two hundred thousand a yearat volume production, which is roughly in
line with his previous statements about thecurrent capabilities of the Giga Texas facility where
the cyber truck is going to beproduced. The ramp up won't be as
quick as Tesla would like due tothe complexity of the vehicle and the difficulty
(04:05):
of the manufacturing process. Musk hasbeen very careful to emphasize that ever since
the earnings call, but the hopeis that in twelve to eighteen months,
Tesla will have hit volume production andthe company can look forwards to increasing that
even more. Back in May duringthe annual shareholders meeting, Elon mentioned that
(04:25):
Tesla would be attempting to get theproduction of cybertruck to anywhere between two hundred
and fifty thousand and five hundred thousandunits per year. That's actually not much
more than the initial ramp up willbe able to make, so it looks
like Tesla should be able to hitthose goals. More importantly, though,
it seems that people are just gettingready to get their hands on a cyber
(04:46):
truck and play with the options likethis new Matt Black wrap. There's been
no word on when exactly these newoptions will be available, but it is
good to see Tesla showing them offso confidently. Maybe they'll even have a
few options ready. By the endof November, it's official Tesla's new next
generation car will be produced in theirfacility in Germany. On November three,
(05:10):
Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited the Gigiberlinfactory to deliver the good news. In
the midst of public debate about thenext construction phase of the facility. Just
last week we covered the first fewopen forum discussions with local residents and regulatory
groups where the water intake of themassive factory was discussed and ultimately approved.
(05:30):
Gigiberlin's huge expansion has been slowly simmeringin the background of Tesla projects all throughout
the year, but once these publicdebates are over, construction can begin.
A large portion of this expansion projectwill see floor space in the vehicle production
area almost double, as well asan entirely new battery production facility built on
the property. Most of the buzzaround this expansion has been directed at the
(05:56):
increase in regular vehicle production it willaccommodate, but now we know there's another
reason as well as why it's happeningright now. Announced back at the Investor's
Day event in March, Tesla's nextgeneration vehicle platform has been marketed as a
cheap, utilitarian option. Being pricedat roughly twenty five thousand dollars, This
(06:17):
vehicle will not only allow Tesla tocorner the market on affordable evs, but
it'll give the company an opportunity tofinally develop their long awaited Robotaxi idea,
a completely automated self driving taxi.Originally, the idea was to start production
of this new platform at Gigamexico,but some snags with local infrastructure and some
(06:40):
wariness with global interest rates have forcedTesla executives to slow down on their completion
of that particular facility and move theproject to Giga Texas, where most of
the company's best engineers and design personnelare currently stationed for the cybertruck project.
The announcement from Elon doesn't mean thatthe vehicle will be moving again. By
all accounts, it looks like designand prototyping and initial production at least will
(07:05):
still be taking place at Giga Texas. But it makes a lot of sense
to have another facility ready to actuallybuild these cars, and Tesla seems to
have chosen Germany. That is alittle bit of an odd choice considering how
well a smaller, cheaper compact carwould do in a place like Shanghai,
but that facility is already the busiestfacility in Tesla's roster, So maybe the
(07:30):
company is considering importing vehicles to theirfactory in China, which would be a
novel change of pace for them,as Shanghai usually exports parts and vehicles to
the other facilities. This could alsobe another way to justify investing more money
into the European market, where asmaller EV would also perform well. It's
anyone's guess as to why Tesla madethis choice specifically, but it looks like
(07:53):
the Germany crew is going to havethe next five or more years packed with
a factory expansion, the start ofbattery production, and now the creation of
a whole new vehicle production line.Now that's job security. The start of
November has been a busy time forTesla announcements, as CEO Elon Musk announced
via a post on x dot comthat Tesla Vehicles would be testing the use
(08:16):
of Groc, an AI assistant softwaremade by one of Elon's other startups,
XAI. The guy really likes xIf you hadn't caught onto that yet,
the original find was actually made bya Tesla enthusiast named Chuck Cook, who
spotted a post that Elon had liked, saying that Tesla's would be running with
Groc as their AI assistant, andas usual, Elon poked his head into
(08:39):
the thread quickly to confirm that,yes, if Tesla's onboard computers could handle
the program, they will be runningit and using the program's capabilities to run
the most usable inference compute on Earth. Now, what does inference compute mean,
because that's a bit of a mouthful. Inference in an AI context is
the process of running live data throughan AI model in order to make a
(09:03):
prediction or solve problems and complete tasks. What Elon is suggesting here is that
if the onboard computer of Tesla vehiclescan handle the load of such a hefty
program, each individual Tesla equipped withGROC should be able to aid other vehicles
on the local network with live navigationand problem solving tasks. Which is pretty
cool, and it follows with whatTesla and the Elon have been talking about
(09:26):
since they debuted the new FSD directionback in March for the Investor's Day presentations.
Increased usage of their Dojo supercomputer willhelp them train their AI models,
which in turn will support each otherwith live data. Using GROC seems to
just be the next step in realizingthat goal. That's the biggest part of
what GROC can bring to the Teslanetwork, But there are likely some quality
(09:48):
of life things too. According toXai, Groc is designed to be a
user friendly model with a humorous personalitybased on Elon's favorite sci fi series,
they Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,so you can probably expect your new onboard
AI to call you a hoopy foodat least once. Groc so far has
(10:09):
been offered to Premium plus users ofx formerly Twitter as Xai's first ever software
release, and the company has saidthat the Tesla integration will likely go through
x dot Com, since Elon seemskeen on making that site a whole unified
system. If the integration is successful, it looks like Elon is intending for
Groc to completely take over the functionsof the current voice command system on board
(10:33):
Tesla vehicles, so expect testing overthe next few months to really fine tune
that before it starts rolling out tousers.
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