Hey everybody, I'm Zach and I'm Jesse and you're watching Test of Time News, episode 434 on Now You Know. Last episode of the year. Yeah. 2025 coming up, baby. Starting with 435. Okay. Okay, so we haven't wanted to report on all the rumors surrounding the Tesla Refresh Model Y or Project Juniper, because honestly, up until now, it's just been a lot of rumors. But we are starting to get some evidence that the Refresh Model Y could be coming soon. Yeah. With the past refreshes of Tesla models like the recent Model 3 Refresh, we would start to see camouflage test vehicles out and about roughly 10 months prior to launch. Remember, we started seeing first sightings of the Model 3 Highland Refresh in December of 2022. And then the Highland was unveiled in China in September of 23. And first deliveries began in October of 23 in Europe and then January of 24 in the US. Okay, so have we started seeing Model Y junipers on the streets anywhere? Yes, Anton posted this Model Y Refresh is testing in Cali. So many people are excited about a refresh Model Y and rightfully so. Yeah, the Highland Model 3 Refresh was full of improvements from quieter cabin with more acoustic glass to new colors, enhanced seats, ambient lighting, new headlights and taillights, better aerodynamics with the new front fascia upgraded sound system, 17 speakers instead of 14 rear screen removal of the stocks, improved suspension, minor chassis tweaks, slightly better efficiency and range, easier access to windshield wiper fluid, and so much more. I'm so excited to see it. But when is it coming? Well, if you listen to fans, then it's coming right now, right January or February. But like we said, it usually takes longer based on past refreshes. Although the Model Y is so similar to the Model 3 in terms of parts and design, it could be much quicker this time because Tesla already has the experience of upgrading the Model 3. You're right, it could be sooner. So we asked our patrons in this week's Patreon poll, which you can access by supporting us on Patreon. By the way, we'll give you those results later in the show. Tesla of course does not want anyone to think about the refresh until the last possible second, because it will reduce existing Model Y sales as potential customers. Wait for the launch of the new version. Yeah, so let us know down in the comments what you think, is it coming in Q1? I don't know. Or is it going to be a few more months? So the start of the new year is the perfect time to overhaul your finances. Rocket money is a personal finance app that allows you to manage subscriptions, lower bills, make a custom budget, and grow your savings all in one place. So I've used Rocket money to cancel subscriptions. So Rocket money safely and securely identifies reoccurring charges and cancels unwanted subscriptions for you. You can even cancel from the app with just a couple of taps. 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Go to rocketmoney.com/naino or click the link in the description to get started for free. You can also unlock even more features with premium. Thanks to Rocket money for sponsoring this episode. So that first story feeds right into our next story. The Tesla Model 3 has been declared the winner of the 2024 car of the year award by the leading Swedish motoring magazine, Technikensvarled. What does that have to do with the refresh Model Y? Well, Technikensvarled said the Model 3 remains the benchmark in its class, not only in terms of practicality, but also in terms of price. It might not be the funnest new car you can buy, but when you factor in all the factors like charging network, app control, handling, and performance, it's hard to argue against the Model 3. Now we're just waiting for the roomier, more family-friendly Model Y to get the same updates. So the Model Y was their third-place car of the year, right behind the Model 3 and the VW Golf. The Model Y will likely be Sweden's best-selling car of the year already, as is true in many other countries. I am not surprised. So when Tesla launches the refresh juniper Model Y with all those improvements, just think of those increased sales. Good point. It's going to make the Model Y even harder for the competition to catch. So Tesla has been busy giving out Christmas presents. Not only did all Tesla owners get the Christmas over-the-air software update with lots of goodies that we talked about in the last couple of shows, but on Christmas Eve, Tesla sent out this to Tesla owners. Another full self-driving trial? Isn't this like the third one? Yep, for some owners, this was the third free FSD trial that they've received this year. The first was in April, the second was in October. So what if you already pay for the monthly $99 FSD subscription? Then this is another free month. It says this free trial will end on February 22nd. If you have an active FSD subscription, 30 days of free FSD capability will be added to your vehicle. So Tesla charging post is supercharger battery. Heating is now live at V3 and V4 posts in cold climates. When plugging in, superchargers can now preheat batteries for the Model 3 and Y that are standard range rear wheel drive. This gets you back on the road faster in extreme cold conditions whenever you can always precondition before supercharging for the fastest charging. And Max Zager, Tesla's head of supercharging said this feature may seem small, but it's pretty incredible. Through an AC ripple current coming from the superchargers, cold soaked LFP vehicles will be able to get back on the road up to four times faster. This is possible through Tesla's vertical integration and some of our incredible engineers. For the best performance though, always precondition your battery before supercharging. Alright, so what's AC ripple current? Because I know the car is DC charging at that moment, but he's saying there's also at the same time an AC current going through the battery pack? Yeah, I'm not an electrical engineer. So this is definitely not my area of expertise. But yes, it sounds to me like they're super imposing an AC current on top of a DC current and that's supposed to directly heat up the especially LFP batteries. Interesting. Well, if you know more about this, if you're an electrical engineer, please comment down below. I'm really fascinated. But this is why you should buy a Tesla as opposed to another car brand. Now, maybe Tesla in the future will be able to integrate with other car brands and LFP heat, you know, cold battery packs. But at the moment, Tesla is going to be the only car company that's able to do this. And the only way that they're able to actually do this is because they control the battery, the car, and the charger. Now, if you don't drive a Tesla, I know you might have missed that last point where they said always preheat your battery before supercharging. You don't have to think about that. Normally, you just say where you're going, your car knows that it's going to a supercharger and it starts whenever it needs to start, it's done the calculations of how cold it is outside, how cold the battery pack is, and it starts to prewarm it. That is an amazing feature that I have not seen on hardly any other car. It's true. So Dan Priestley, Tesla's head of semi posted recently. Yesterday, semi factory Nevada topped off the main area of the building with the last major piece of structural steel fantastic design and execution by this construction team and our contractor partners with focus on safety and efficiency. This factory is going to rock. And Sia LTL freight, which is a 100 year old trucking company based in Georgia. They've 194 terminals across the US and employ 14,000 employees. Well, Sia announced recently that they are placing two Tesla semis into their fleet. Sia VP of operations, Patrick sugar said, we're very impressed with the Tesla semi as demonstrated an ability to handle both local and longer haul applications while still delivering notable power and efficiency. During a demonstration earlier this year, we achieve 1.73 kilowatt hours per mile. Our drivers were equally impressed, noting the smooth acceleration, comfortable design, and its ability to maintain speeds on steep inclines, even while hauling heavy payloads. This feedback underscores the enormous potential of the Tesla semi. Yeah, it's just cool to see another big trucking company going, oh yeah, we're going to need these. Now, I know that the Tesla semi is moving a lot slower than a lot of people thought it was going to. I know that like there was a lot of testing very early on. It was like, oh, Walmart and Anheuser Busch and Pepsi, it so far has seemed like Pepsi has been the main tester of this. And I think a big reason for this is that Tesla wanted to get the Tesla semi right. Yes. This is not a consumer vehicle. This thing has to work all day long. And so, they've been testing with Pepsi. Now, they're starting to roll out the Tesla semi factory. Now, once the semi factory is done, I think we're going to see a lot more of these partnerships. Laozoo Tesla's senior VP of automotive in China posted proud of the team. Many people underestimate Tesla's unique strength, developing manufacturing capabilities optimized for the fast evolving AI era. Once the entire automotive industry transitions to full autonomous driving, the real competition will center on how efficiently vehicles can be produced. We will be ready. And he included this quote from Bruce Lee, speed is not just the ability to move quickly, but the ability to adapt quickly. It's the synchronization of mind and body, the elimination of unnecessary movements, and the focus on precision. The essence of speed lies not in haste, but in efficiency. And this is amazing. According to CNEV post, Tesla's mega factory is being finished as we speak. Construction took just seven months from groundbreaking to pumping out mega packs. Yeah, that's 50% faster than Tesla's mega pack factory in Lathrop, California. I know this gets confusing. We're talking about gigafactories, mega factories, the mega factory makes the mega packs. And so now they have two mega pack factories, one in California, one in Shanghai. Production of mega packs in Shanghai will be starting in Q1 and should get up to 10,000 mega packs per year when they get to full production. That is awesome. All right, it's time for the Cybertruck Roundup. Get off the Cybertruck Roundup. It's so weird to go on Tesla's vehicle inventory page and see this. I know, right, a whole page of Cybertrucks because you think back for the past few years, and there were so many of us asking like, when will my Cybertruck arrive? Now you can just buy one. And it seems like Tesla is adding some sweetener to the deal. Yes, as for a limited time receive free supercharging when you purchase a new foundation series Cybertruck. Nice. So free supercharging for the entire time that you own the vehicle. That's a really cool part. It's so cool. Yeah, and I think a lot of people who didn't really follow Cybertruck closely, but are now, you know, seeing them on the roads and maybe want to buy one, you can get one for 79.9, which also qualifies for the $7,500 federal tax credit. So that's right off the sticker price. So we're talking 72, 490. And in so many places in the US, also in Mexico and Canada, you can pick it up today. And if you live in the US and you own a business, this qualifies for the Hummer tax incentive, which means that you can depreciate the entire value of the Cybertruck day one. Yeah, although we're not tax accountants. We're not tax accountants, but I'm just saying a little change with your tax attorney. I'm saying you, and you don't have to, it's not like you have to put all the money down. You can get a loan for the car and still get the full. I don't know what these people were smoking when they made the Hummer tax credit way back in the 90s. But oh boy, is it great? And now instead of being the least efficient car on the road, it's the most efficient pickup truck. Yeah, with the least emissions too. Exactly. And now it's kind of shocking, right? So on Sunday, this photo of a Cybertruck in the Netherlands was reposted by Tesla's head engineer West Morrill saying first Cybertruck registered in EU, driving in Netherlands, someone was bound to figure it out eventually. So this is a repost of what Dennis had posted on Saturday. Turns out with some internet sleuthing, it appears to be Albanian license plates. And so many think it is probably bodybuilder and Dutch rapper Costo's Cybertruck, which he bought in Oysterwick, Netherlands. Costo lives in the Netherlands, but his parents are Albanian. So here's my conjecture alert. Think you picked it up in the Netherlands, brought along some Albanian license plates, pop those on there, drove it, high-tailed it back to Albania, where probably, you know, he's got a cousin who works at the DMV or something. And my guess is it's going to live in Albania for most of the time, because I don't think you could probably get this on European roads if you don't pull some strings, just a conjecture. Why not? Why can you drive it on European roads? I mean, four wheels. I just don't think it's been homologated for European regulations, you know, regulations. Oh, I don't know. Tell me what you guys think, especially if you live in Europe, and you know this kind of stuff. But there have been others spotted, like one in France with Czech plates, but my guess again is that a lot of these are being registered in some kind of mysterious way. And then they just drive around Europe and then kind of go east. That's my guess. Interesting. So Tesla White Hat Hacker green the only posted recently. 2024.45.32 adds new trailer profiles. So you can record trailer mileage, but also type open or enclosed to better estimate energy use. So there can be up to 20 of such profiles. You have to enter and switch all of that manually despite all the Tesla vision hype, I guess. Anyone on say it remembers miles driven per trailer based on what you select during trips. And you also have an option to reset the counter. Okay. So to recap, users will be able to record trailer mileage and input data like the type of trailer that they're towing, whether it's open and closed or otherwise, better estimate energy use. And eventually I'm guessing that some kind of AI vision will be able to tell which trailer you're hooking up automatically. So you won't have to tell it. And also these signs have started appearing at superchargers. That's so cool. I can't wait to start towing our solar mobile studio trailer in 2025. That's going to be awesome. And so tell us where to visit in the comments. Now another thing you could do with a trailer profile is know how it will respond while you're backing up. And that might mean that you could autonomously back up a trailer. I think that's coming and I can't wait for that because being able to move your truck around autonomously could mean that you could get out of your truck and just tell it to go supercharged or tell it to go pick you up or whatever in the parking lot. Like these are things that when you're towing a trailer can get really monotonous and time consuming, especially for people who are not good at it. So I mean, even if you don't get out of your truck, I think that Tesla could sell a little like magnetic or otherwise attached backup camera on the trailer. And then basically have you drive around a parking lot to calibrate it and then use that to help back up your trailer. Please be working automatically. Please. That'd be great. Hey, and this is the kind of stuff we should be talking about over on Cyber Truck Owners Club. Thank you so much guys for sponsoring this show. That is where you should go for all of this kind of information about, you know, how much mileage will I get while I'm trailing? Well, everyone on there is talking about this. So that's the place to go. So Tesla charging posted new winners announced on our Tesla.com find us map new supercharger voting round is open. Now vote your favorite location. So the way you vote is going to Tesla.com/supercharger voting and you will see a map with a leaderboard and you can vote for an already popular voted location or introduce your own. So which was the winner for Q3? Warsaw Poland. Oh, nice. And here are the other winners. And we're all winners because Tesla is so smart to do it this way. Having the community vote means that they, number one, get their ideas about locations that may not be obvious to people who don't travel in certain areas. And two, by having the community upvote locations, Tesla gets the list every quarter of the best locations to build new superchargers. It's no wonder that Tesla already has the best high speed charging network in the world and practically nobody outside of Tesla owners know about it. Yeah. Wait, what? The other really smart thing is that only Tesla owners can vote on it. Right. Because otherwise I can totally see like the Bureau of Commerce in a certain particular town being like, okay, now everyone needs to vote. Well, I do kind of wonder because Italy has some seriously highly upvoted locations. Take a look at these. Number one on the leaderboard right now is Barry Italy with over 2,100 votes. By the way, you can vote up to five times per quarter. So hop on the website. It's really fun. You can either just introduce a new site or go upvote something that's there already. I guess the Chamber of Commerce in Italy might be a little different. If you vote for us five times, Squeedle, it's going to be good for your business. So Max DeZager, Tesla's head of supercharging posted recently, we're ready to turn on 72 supercharger stalls for the holidays for all Swedish EV drivers. Superchargers are the most affordable charging, support all EVs and our critical infrastructure to support peak travel days. Important for EV adoption in Sweden that current and future superchargers get energized as soon as possible by utilities currently blocking us from opening them. What does that say? Well, here it is translated ready to connect a supercharger in Sweden helps to avoid approximately 60,000 kilograms of CO2 emissions every year. Today, there are more than 1,200 superchargers in Sweden. So why are the Swedish utilities stopping them from opening? Well, if you remember the IF metal union strike against Tesla and Sweden? Yeah, a little over a year ago, Tesla wouldn't agree to a collective bargaining agreement in Sweden, but isn't IF metal like a car making union? What do they have to do with utilities? Right, so I mean, they took action against Tesla and then some other unions in Sweden have decided to not perform work for Tesla in kind of sympathy of that union. So apparently that includes union electricians with utilities that would be hooking up these five supercharger locations. As Max says, 72 stalls just waiting to be wired up, but they won't hook them up because they're union. And what does that Tesla employees vest say? Tak, that's out of brah. What does that mean? Thanks, I'm good. Oh, they didn't want to join the union. Right. Right. Yeah, the union's been kind of pushing for Tesla employees to join because it's like, you have horrible work conditions. They're like, no, we kind of like it here. So why do we have to change anything? And so because of that, union electricians won't hook up superchargers in Europe. I mean, Tesla has since this story has begun, been able to continue to conduct business in Sweden. Oh, yeah. I mean, like we just said, the Model Y is probably going to be the best selling car this year in Sweden. So they didn't stop anything. So this is just a little temper tantrum that doesn't actually make a difference. Well, and I would totally understand if Tesla was like slave labor kind of company and not treating their employees well, but the employees want to work there. So what's the problem? Right. And this is where unions get a little. They shoot themselves in the foot. I mean, let's be honest, they do. So during this holiday season, Tesla's pre fabricated mobile chargers were spotted in Bakersfield, California, Prim Nevada, El Centro, California, and Cambridge, Ohio. Max Dezager, again, Tesla's head of supercharging said megapack chargers have three megawatt hours of capacity capable of charging roughly 75 cars, eight times 250 kilowatt posts, and are Starlink connected. They're a powerful tool for temporary congestion bottlenecks and disruptions like hurricanes. They're recharged within hours by taking a nearby supercharger cabinet offline at night when usage is low. They're costly and high bandwidth to deploy, but make all the difference for getting customers home for the holidays. I think that's so cool that even though the supercharger network is awesome, there are these like really high traffic areas, especially during the holidays. And to overcome that, they bring these in, which really helps with the overload. And what it allows Tesla to do is to war game a bit. It allows them to kind of see what would happen if they did have a supercharger in a certain location, you know, on those peak days, but it would kind of give them an idea of off peak days as well. Like, is this a good location for a supercharger? And the next year, they could put, you know, the mobile supercharger in a different location because they have all the data of all the cars. If you say like, oh, I want to go to Austin, Texas, it's going to know how long it took you to get to Austin, Texas, and it's going to see like, oh, this supercharger was the bottleneck, or they could basically do a whole bunch of complicated math to figure out, oh, the supercharger should go here. Well, and the other cool thing is because it's Starlink connected, it shows up on your Tesla map. So when it's, you know, Christmas Eve, you will know that there are certain number chargers there. It won't be like, oh, we didn't know that mega charger was there. And again, you don't even have to think about it. You just say, I want to go to grandma's house. It's going to route you through this supercharger. You're going to pull up, go, oh, this supercharger's weird plug in, leave, and you're going to have gotten there a whole lot faster. So there are still heroes in this world. And here's the thing. He said it's costly and it is, but if they don't have to actually build it, if they only have to bring it there once a year or twice a year, that is way cheaper than building one that might not get used for the rest of the year. Interesting. So VW is about to start backup production of the ID for. I didn't realize they had stopped production. Why did they stop producing it? Don't you remember back in September, VW had to recall a hundred thousand of them because of leaking door handles? Leaking door handles? Oh, I remember. I mean, I don't think we ran a story on it because we thought it was a simple fix for a big auto manufacturer like VW to handle. Good one. Pretty good. I did too, but VW had to stop production because water getting into those door handles could fry the circuit boards controlling the handle and then make the doors open without warning. It's been four months and VW just figured out a solution with dealers starting to install the fix onto ID fors that were sitting on their lots. The factories are starting to install the fix as well and production should resume any day now. Did all these ID for owners have to stop driving the cars? No, a NHTSA allowed drivers to keep driving until the fix was figured out, but 200 VW workers were furloughed because VW sales have plummeted. Oh, wow. Ouch. So here are the sales numbers of the ID for in the US over the last 12 months. Yeah, you can see that started out okay. And in the end of 2023, and then it just started dipping. And then in Q3, there was a stop sale issued. So basically, they have not been selling in this quarter at all. Only about 16,000 were sold in the US this year. And for reference, Tesla Model Y has sold 289,000 in the US just in the first three quarters. So I guess there was no over the air software update for a leaky door handle. I don't think so. I just don't understand it. I mean, you could argue Volkswagen hasn't made EVs before. So they, but they have made door handles before handles, right? Isn't that something they probably had some time to perfect. Going back through expos and stuff, I see that owners of VW ID fors did know about this before September. And they let VW know about it. It's just the official like recall date started in September. So VW had many, many months to figure this out. And they're a big auto company. You'd think they would know how to make a non leaky door handle. And it's a door handle. When was the first door handle? But you know what else is funny, you know, you hear every Tesla recall is blown up, you know, every headline. Hardly talked about it all by the legacy media that VW had this problem. And it basically put an end to this unit. Right. Right. Like Tesla will have a recall to go like a million cars are recalled with a software over the update that tricks the cars immediately. And the drivers never noticed. And then Volkswagen's going to have this problem. They're dead in the water. Oh, water. Sorry. I didn't want to. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. All right. Time for some space X news. Another week of having back to back space X missions. Check this out. Falcon nine completes back to back missions from California and Florida delivering 22 Starlink satellites to the constellation and astronomers from one to many mission to orbit on our 132nd and 133rd launches of the year. And there is our first stage booster standing tall on a short follow gravitas. Elon said congrats space X team on completing two great orbital missions in 24 hours. And there had been another mission scheduled for midnight of December 31st, but it looks like it's going to be scrubbed because of weather. So there's probably the last missions of the year. But I do want to kind of wrap up space X here. Yaseen said space X in 2024 for Starship flights first ever successful catch of a super heavy 129 Falcon nine launches deployment of over 1500 Starlink satellites to Falcon heavy launches for crew dragon missions to cargo dragon missions and the first ever commercial spacewalk. Wow. Boeing, why don't you tell us what you did this year? And from what we're seeing the Starship seven launch could be happening as soon as January 11th, according to documents filed with NASA and the FAA. But this could change. Yeah, it's going to depend on some weather and stuff like that. But it could be that soon. So hold on here, but buckle up. Oh, man. All right, it's time for into the future sponsored by our friends at Henson shaving. Did you not get what you want for Christmas this year? Get yourself the best shaver in the world. Henson Shaver. I absolutely love it. I know that I grew a beard, but that's because I used the Henson Shaver and my face finally was like, Oh, you've treated me well. I will now grow you a beard. And I said, that's you know, you return a bunch of things, but then, you know, get something you want to treat yourself and you can use our code. Now you know, it check out and you will get a hundred blades for free. So Hyundai USA said big news for our Evie family starting Q1 of 2025 free NACS adapters for current Hyundai Evie owners access to 20,000 plus Tesla superchargers and the 2025 Ionic 5 makes history as the first non Tesla with native NACS port driving electric just got even better. Well, whoa, whoa. The Ionic 5 is the first non Tesla Evie with a native NACS port. Why did I think there were already others? I guess because there should be by now. NACS was announced by Tesla as a standard in November of 2022 more than two years ago. Ford was the first to adopt the standard in May of 2023. If they adopted it, what what? Well, they adopted it meaning we will put it in our cars. It's a weird way to adopt something. They pre adopted it. We adopted a child. Oh, where? Where is your kid? Oh, they're coming. A couple years. A couple years. We're going to adopt. We got to test them first. Yeah. This is just weird though because the, I mean, Hyundai adopted the standard in October of 2023. One of the last automakers to do so. And now just 14 months later, they have an Evie with a Tesla charge port, but none of the others do yet. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of this has to do with lead times. A lot of people don't realize that when a new model year car came out, it was probably designed at least three years ago. So car companies are really slow at iterating. That's why they hate Tesla because Tesla is fast at iterating. So when they say, oh, yeah, we'll put that in our car that it means years from now. And that's just a charge port, by the way, which should be something easy to swap out. But no, no, no. All right, time for going green. So do you like gold? Do I like gold? Yeah, I like gold. Would you like to have gold mines more sustainably? Sure. That sounds good. Would you like your gold to be mined autonomously? Sure. Well, then you're going to like the story. New gold incorporated, ticker symbol NgD has deployed to autonomous Toro L H 518 IB battery electric underground loaders at their new aftermind in British Columbia, Canada. These loaders were introduced as part of an effort to enhance the sustainability of their mining operations by reducing emissions, noise and dependency on diesel fuel. These are North America's first fully automated battery electric loaders in operation. So these are Swedish 18 ton loaders made by the Swedish company Sandvik. I see they use lipo batteries because obviously weight doesn't matter. In fact, heavier is probably better with mining loaders. Yeah, and they can auto swap and auto connect new batteries in less than five minutes without the operator leaving the cab. That's cool. So do we have any stats? Yes, each loader has 540 kilowatts of power. That's 6000 Newton meters of torque. Because I didn't know this, but they drive into the pile underground and scoop up some whatever it is call, you know, a gold in this case or or and you're right, it's heavy 14 metric tons, but it can carry 18 tons of payload. And you mentioned that they're autonomous? Yeah, with the optional auto mine kits, which I would definitely get an operator can drive the loader remotely from a chair on the surface. No need to go down in the mine. The operator can even battery swap remotely. People might be going like, Oh, I don't really care about emissions. But if you're in a mine, if you're in an enclosed space, emissions are pretty important, because you do not have a lot of air to be like, oh, just blowing out into the air, you're gonna have to breathe whatever that thing's putting out. And this mining rig is not making any emissions in the mine. Right. So I mean, in addition to saving on fuel and maintenance for the loader, you're also saving on the amount of ventilation that you have to send down the mine for that human. And eventually, this could lead to cheaper mining because you can basically make the mine smaller, right? Because now you don't have to be pumping out all sorts of harmful diesel. Yeah, because when you look at the cab for the driver there, it's sticking up from the miner because he has to be able to see if you can take that out completely in the future and make this like, always autonomous that you could have your right smaller minds. So before we continue with more stories and going green, we want to thank our sponsor climatize. So you may remember we interviewed Will Weisman, the co founder earlier this year, you can check out that really interesting interview here. Will co founded climatize so that we can invest in solar and sustainable energy projects, even EV charging projects that are raising fun. Their platform is super easy to use. You can simply go to climatize.Earth/NYK. So the way it works is you go to climatize this website, you set up an account. If you choose to invest, you can do so with as little as $10. They're no investor fees. And this is open to all US bank account holders over the age of 18. You don't need to be accredited or anything special. Investment offerings on their platform have the ability to pay up to a 10% annual target return. Yes, you heard that right. You can potentially earn up to a 10% annual return. Thanks to climatize for sponsoring the show visit climatize.Earth/NYK. Or download the app and use the code NYK023 for a $25 free credit once you complete the onboarding process. So King County Metro in Seattle, Washington has a vanpool program. So it's an eco-friendly, cost-effective commuting solution for groups of at least three people with similar routes, reducing traffic congestion and emissions in the process. So it's vans that are owned by the city and residents can pay to have it drive them to and from work. Not exactly. So any group of three or more people who share similar commute routes and schedules can apply to get a van. You have to have at least two volunteer drivers and a bookkeeper to manage logistics like mileage tracking and fare collection. The program provides participants with a van, fuel, maintenance and insurance for a monthly fee. For some people it's as low as $49 a month. That's often less than the cost of a transit pass and you have added perks like you can drive in the HOV lane and you get to have emergency ride home services. The van is then kept at the driver's home overnight. Okay, cool. But why is this in going green? Because they just bought 120 Tesla model wise. That's why these 120 seven seat model wise costs $6.49 million, which includes chargers. This is in line with what they would have spent on gas vans and the cool thing is that a seven seat model Y seats about the same number of people that the van would have. And I should note that in most cases, they don't even use all seven seats. Most cases seem to be for five people or less. King County said that model Y was the only seven-seater electric that existed. And that's why they could buy them instead of the vans. Okay, so the model Y is perfect then because it must be way cheaper on fuel and maintenance. Exactly. And it meets King County Metro's vanpool's goal of being 100% zero missions by 2030. Now 10% of their fleet is electric and it looks like they'll be buying $13.5 million more of them next year. So I mean, this sounds like a cool solution to reduce traffic and reduce loneliness of commuting alone, not to mention way cheaper for people to get to work. Yeah, I just want to mention the loneliness part. So great that if you can take one or two other cars off the road, that's awesome for traffic, but also awesome permissions and also awesome for not paying for gas and also awesome for less accidents. But also, you get to share the time with other people and talk to them. And if they're model wise and maybe they'll put FSD in them, maybe they'll be just driving autonomously. Well, and this could basically double their fleet overnight because if you have people that are going to work at six o'clock in the morning and you have people that are going to work at eight o'clock in the morning or even seven o'clock and then eight o'clock and then nine o'clock, you could essentially quadruple your fleet size without quadrupling your fleet size. Exactly. I mean, my prediction is that mass transit is going to be replaced by robo taxis entirely. And I just want you to mark your calendars. You heard it here. Like a lot of people think, well, mass transit has to be buses and trains. Yes, up until now, obviously. But those will all disappear. They're really expensive infrastructure if you think about to have drivers and conductors and train tracks and all that and stations. And that all goes away. And they've been great because it's like, oh, well, they can handle this many people or whatnot. And that justifies their cost. But when the cost comes down with an autonomous robo taxi like this Model Y, it's extremely impactful to budgets. Exactly. And you could replace whole subway lines with these cars and they might be cheaper. Some people might say, well, there's not enough throughput. But if you replace it with robo vans and you can, you don't have to wait for the train, it's just constant loading, unloading to exactly where you wanted to, instead of having to walk six blocks from the train station, like constant constant. Anyway, tell us what you think and also send us photos and videos as soon as these model wise start appearing in Seattle. And you know, if you didn't get that Christmas present, you wanted, we have another one that you probably want to get for yourself to keep yourself safe. This is the EV jet escape connector. What this does, it allows you to plug in your car. And then while sitting in your car, drive away from a charger. If you have to, if there is an emergency, basically, if something or someone is approaching your car, and you do not want to have to get out of your car to one plug, this will sacrifice itself to both protect the charger and you also use it at home. Because I mean, if you ever, God forbid, had a fire in your garage or something, then you would be able to just get out of Dodge without having to burn yourself. So go to EVJack.com. You're going to save a lot by using our link. So use that down below. And if you forgot to get the present for someone, get it now. All right, sign for sunspots. So this is the dirtiest coal power plant in Texas. It's called the San Miguel electric cooperative. This sounds so nice though. The San Miguel electric cooperative. They're so cooperative. Well, it's also known as smeck. Smeek. That sounds more like it. Anyway, this coal plant is the fourth largest mercury polluter in Texas. It emits 12 times the amount of mercury allowed under EPA regulations. The plant has two coal ash ponds. You know about coal ash ponds, right? Oh, yeah, they, they leach toxic chemicals into the local water table, you know, fun stuff like arsenic, beryllium, boron, cadmium, coal balt, lithium, selenium, and radium. All of these toxins have been found at levels exceeding safe thresholds, which poses significant health risks to the local population. Well, hey, you got to keep that stuff somewhere, right? Exactly. You got to have coal ash ponds. So please tell me that there's some good news. Yep, there is. The Department of Agriculture just gave a $1.4 billion in powering rural America grant to close the plant and build a 600 megawatts solar farm with 200 megawatts of batteries. How many megawatts is the current coal plant? The current coal plant serves 340,000 customers. It's 410 megawatts and has been open since 1982. So we talked about the problem with coal ash ponds. Have they found any contamination? Oh, yeah. For example, the EPA has found that cobalt levels in the groundwater around the plant are 360 times as much as allowed by law. The new solar battery farm could be up and running as soon as 2027, saving 1.8 million tons of emissions in creating 600 jobs. McMullen County Judge James Teal said for years, folks in my county have been worried about water contamination from the San Miguel's Lignite mine. So with this announcement, we're hopeful that McMullen County's water will be clean long into the future. Oh, clean water. That's nice. They're going to replace the coal plant with a solar field that is going to generate more electricity than the coal plant did. Well, you have to kind of overpower it because the coal plant could go 24 hours. And so that's why you need the batteries. But the downside is instead of having to build batteries with the coal plant, you have to build coal ash ponds, which are going to pollute your groundwater. So it's like batteries, which don't do anything bad to the environment and solar panels, which don't do anything bad for the environment, or coal ash ponds, which 360 times the amount of cobalt. I mean, there's people that lease this land to the power plant and they've been trying to get their land back because the coal plant has just basically destroyed it. And people, the argument that the coal plant makes is like, well, don't worry that we polluted your groundwater. You're not drinking it, right? And that's not the point. The point is now you can't no one can live there because they've just destroyed that land. Burning fossil fuels, especially coal, is stupid and it pollutes. Even if you don't care about climate change or CO2, just talking about your own health, it is stupid to have this, which is just going to make it so that, I mean, I don't know when you'd ever be able to be here again if it's got cadmium and cobalt and mercury pollution. Like that's it. And it's in the ground. It's in the ground. There's no fishing, there's no boating, there's no nothing. There's no magical fairy that like comes and collects the cadmium and takes it away for safe storage. It's just down there. Hey, and if you'd like to also get rid of the coal plant in your house and put solar on the roof, talk to our friends at EnergyPal. They know about all the rules and regulations, all the tax benefits. And so they'll help you do that for free. Let them know that Zach and Jesse sent you. All right, time for our video contributor stories. We need your stories. Send them to hello@nayunochannel.com. What do we have this week? So Luke took a ride in a Waymo in LA. He got stuck in a loop. My car doesn't know what it's doing. He also found out that the front seats of the car reset after every ride. So you can reset the front seats to whatever position you want to ride when you get out of the car, those front seats reset. So that way the next passenger doesn't have like what? Whoa, hey, whoa, who set this or the front is like, oh, it's too small. Oh, I see. And that's going to be an advantage of the cybercavit. I think there's no a change. That's right. And I wonder if people are going to want that. Like, I wonder if there's so much room. Like normally with a car, it's like the main reason that you have passenger adjustable seats is because the driver seat has to be adjustable. Right. That way you can actually like drive the car. I guess that's a good point. There's no adjustable seats and buses or trains either. Or usually the back seats of cars aren't adjustable because you're not, you know, it's not a seat that a driver is going to be using. Right. All right. So I'm for a Patreon bonus stories. And if you're like, what is that? Well, you can join us for as little as a buck a month, head on over to Patreon supports the work we do. And then you get all these bonus stories for like, what is that a quarter a week? Pretty much. See you there. All right, we're back from a Patreon bonus stories. That was a lot of stories. It's time for a Patreon poll. So if you want to join the poll, join us on Patreon for that. When do you think the refresh Model Y project Juniper will launch? What do people say? Split between Q1 and Q2. It's coming to Q1. Any day now. Do you think so? I hope you're right. That'd be nice. It could be. I mean, the Model 3 refresh took longer, but they did learn a lot. And I'm sure a lot of these things are the same. So I hope so. But I'm sure Tesla's not going to mention it until the last possible second. Of course. Comment down below where you think it's going to launch first. Right. Because last time it was in China and then Europe and then the United States will be the opposite this time. I don't know. All right, time for Elon's Xs of the week. And Elon posted this ozempic Santa, like cocaine bear, but Santa and ozempic. Technically, manjaro, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. High doses of ozempic made me fart and burp, like Barney from the Simpsons. Monjaro seems to have fewer side effects and be more effective. So a lot of people are asking, is that really him or is that some kind of AI drawing of him? Which is I don't know. The fixed pie fallacy is at the heart of much wrong headed economic thinking. There is essentially infinite potential for job and company creation. Think of all the things that didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago. And the New York Post said Elon Musk urges supporters not to donate to Wikipedia after it spent $50 million on DEI. Elon said they spent 50 million on DEI. Damn, they suck. And does designer said Elon Musk once offered Wikipedia a billion dollars to change their name to Wikipedia. Elon says true offers still stands a billion dollars. I'm okay. We'll change the name of this show. I don't think I'm going to change it. For a billion dollars. Tesla optimists posted they grow up so fast, Merry Christmas from Optimus and his older brother Optimus. Elon said Japan's population is now dropping by almost a million people per year. Yeah, 861,000 people less next year in Japan. Elon said you can just say things. That's so true. You can. You can just say things. Ian Miles-Jong says if America always had the best and brightest why did it need to recruit Wener von Braun and innumerable other German scientists as part of Operation Paperclip. Elon said indeed until they were applied to the US space program America was losing space raised badly. Adam Lowett says bro, how do you even find time to play games? I had to delete cookie clicker off of my phone because it took up so much of my time. Elon said it's my main activity after work and family. So long as I'm not pushing for record runs I can both think about high level things and play at the same time. He can think while he's playing a game. I'm totally locked in when I'm playing a game. I usually can't even pay attention to the game. Like. Elon said AI will take over tech support big time in 2025. Ooh, that's a big that's a big prediction. Elon Musk said Mars will be called the new world just as America was in past centuries such an inspiring adventure. Wernan say anyone of any race, creed or nationality who came to America and worked like hell to contribute to this country will forever have my respect. America's the land of freedom and opportunity fight with every fiber of your being to keep it that way. Elon said we named Tesla after Nikola Tesla one of the greatest engineers ever. He was a penniless immigrant whose inventions led to American dominance in electricity generation and usage. And then he posted this. You know what this is? This video? It's a video of the cooling system for the XAI supercomputer. Wow. Yeah, a lot of water to cool those things off. Kaizen says once we colonize Mars, how should governance work? Should it be an extension of Earth's nations? Elon says the Martians will decide how they are ruled. I recommend direct rather than representative democracy uncrewed starships landing on Mars in roughly two years, perhaps with crude versions passing near Mars and crude starships heading there in roughly four years are all possible. That's so exciting for the end of the decade. We might have crude starships on Mars. That's amazing. Elon said storage has become crazy cheap. Look at that. A bucket terabyte. Down from what was it? A hundred million. And that graph is not it's a it's an exponential. I know. Yeah. All right, it's time for community mail time. Sean spotted these Tesla semis. Danubio spotted this electric Walmart van. Nice. Max spotted two e-ray C8 corvettes. So these are all-wheel drive. They're hybrids. Oh, they're hybrids. They have one electric front motor, which puts out 165 horsepower and a 500 horsepower internal combustion engine mid-engine. Okay. So one of them is a coupe. One of them is a hard top convertible. And they cost as much as a model S and a model three combined for one vehicle. And they're slower than both. Yeah, but it's a Corvette. Yuri spotted this cyber truck with the bike protector and the Captain America shield. All the bike protector. It's out of stock. I know. I want to get one, though. Oh, and that's in San Mateo, California, by the way. Ignacio says, did you know that charging in Monaco is free? And he spotted this model Y that works for a helicopter company. Let's go. Let's go live in Monaco. You don't need an app or anything in Monaco. Just all of the charging is free because it's Monaco. Randy saw the cyber truck towing the unplugged performance race car at Pismo Beach, California. And it's not the first time they've taken second. All right, we raced them at Pike's Peak. Yeah. And we came in. Where are we coming again? Oh, first, baby. Wow. Awesome. Romero got these pictures of the first cyber truck in Uruguay. Mm-hmm. What? That is a cyber truck, and it is in Uruguay. That's awesome. Jonathan wrote in. He said, Hey, Zach and Jesse love the show, a small update from New Zealand on two things you might find interesting. One, Tesla has started advertising on prominent electronic billboards at main intersections in Christchurch on the South Island. Number two, Starlink usage has really taken off in New Zealand, of course. So that is awesome. Thank you so much for the pictures, John. Yeah, I mean, he spotted their local fire department using Starlink in, I guess, the Canterbury region, which really helps them when they're doing like emergency reporting on brush fires and stuff. I mean, so many cool uses for Starlink that no one thought was possible. Thank you for the update. And I just want you to guess where this cyber truck is. Looks like Nevada, maybe? No, it does start with an N. Nevada. What's another? New Mexico. Nigeria. So our viewer, Abubakar, spotted the first cyber truck in Abuja, Nigeria. Wow. That is a cyber truck in Africa, baby. That's awesome. That's great. I love seeing these all over the world. Speaking of all over the world, Deviloy spotted this cyber truck in Puerto Rico. That's awesome. You know what's awesome about that is being able to do power share. So when there's a power outage, you can power your house with it. Exactly. Mike got this shot of his local Tesla delivery center in Maryland when he went to go pick up his cyber truck. I love seeing that. David spotted this ice car on fire in North Carolina. Nothing to see here, folks. Such a common occurrence. It's so weird. I didn't hear about this on the legacy media. Yeah. I wonder why. Oh, and Douglas spotted a Model Y ready for ski season. It's got the snowboard and ski rack on the top. Nice. And he also spotted a graffiti blue wrapped cyber truck. Nice. I love that. I wonder how many people can read that. Well, I don't know. Somebody scratch something on the back of their car. And those are both in Canada, by the way. Nice. All right. So remember, share your stories, your photos, your videos with us at Hello@NagnoChannel.com. That's what makes the show great. It's a community show. Do we have any EV tips of the week? Yes. We do. Glenn wrote in. He said, "Hi, guys. I'm not a Tesla owner, sadly, but I have a 2020 ionic electric. What I do regularly, while driving with nobody behind me, is I press the neutral button on my gear selector, and then I give a good hard push on the brake pedal, and that cleans my brake discs each week." Oh, because it won't go into region. Yes, because the Tesla has like a whole service mode thing, and I tried it and totally worked to burnish your brake discs, because essentially with an EV, you don't use your brakes that often, so they get a little rusty. And you want to clean off that rust, you want to have good surface contact between your brake discs and the pads. I guess I'm a little afraid to go into neutral when I'm driving, though, because it's something you do so infrequently, and I just feel like if it, God forbid, went into reverse or something. EVs aren't stupid. No. You're used to very, very stupid cars. Like my 1980 Dodge van. Yes. That one, at 100 miles an hour, you could just shift into reverse, and that's a very fast way to remove the transmission for the car. With an EV, it literally will not allow you to go into reverse over a certain speed. You may have noticed that when you're pulling into a spot and you're trying to do it quickly, and it'll beep at you and be like, "You did a dumb thing," as opposed to throwing the transmission out of the car. Why is this why I don't see any Teslas in movies and TV shows when they're doing high-speed chases? Because, first of all, the Tesla would trash the other car, but also because you couldn't do one of those J-brake high-speed... Well, in other things, you can't downshift. In the movies, normally, they keep downshifting until they get, I guess, to reverse, and then they go even faster. All right, Sam, for beautiful superchargers. Remember, you can send them to us. Do we have any this week? Well, it is not a supercharger, but Mugasha spotted these EV fastchargers in Kampala, Uganda, so they can each charge at 160 kilowatts each. That is beautiful. That's awesome. That's pretty cool, so we've got a supercharger truck and drive-over from the majority of Uganda. It's such a short jaunt, really. I don't know if it has the range for that, but probably not. It's exciting to start to see EV chargers all over the world, and that's great. All right, it's time for supercharger reviews. You guys take it away. This is Michael from Strasbourg in France, and I'm not really much into supercharger reviews, but this one is a bit special, and that's why I'm doing it. It's the Ferris wheeled supercharger. Isn't that cool? And there's a huge shopping mall on the other side. Absolutely, Miga Mall. Nine out of ten. Now, you know. Hi, Zedden J, and Zacken Jass. We are at Fussen in Germany, part of our road trip. We have said previous reviews. I was going to say where they only car here, but as you can see, there's someone else pulling up. So, only two really nice Virgin Free chargers. And we're in a BK lounge, as you can see, which has drinks, coffee, license, ice lollies, and you can even order from here a fresh pizza made in four minutes, apparently, just put your money in, order your pizza, and it pops out somehow. We're going to find out how one day may be, but not this morning. Anyway, it's quite a nice place. It's not far from motorways. It's obviously very quiet right at the moment. So, I'd have to give this all of them. There's a supermarket literally right next door, a little, in case you need to get some shopping. Not a lot else round, but given the BK lounge here, I certainly have to give it an 8 out of 10. So, how you doing? Cheers. Hello, Zach and Jesse. This is GK from the driver's seat. I am at an 8-star 250 kilowatt supercharger in Jonesboro, Arkansas, right out in front of a come-and-go. Our gas stations, they've got pretty much everything you need from mustard to dog food. And it's a pretty nice place. Not too close to anything, a little far off the beaten path, but it'll get there if you need your seats. I'm going to give it about a 6 out of 10 just because the distance away from the major highway. But how can you beat that sunrise? It's only 10 minutes to 6 in the morning. Now, you know. Hey, Zach and Jesse. This is Philip again from Belgium, and we are still on the way from Croatia to Belgium, back to the winter time, because it's raining and cold there. We are between Würzburg in Germany and Frankfurt. And actually, we are in Wertheim Almozenberg. That looks like a rather new supercharger station. And it's more like a construction zone. You see, my car is charging fine. The speed we have now is about 17580 kilowatts. And there is only two cars charging, my car and a black Model Y. The area is absolutely not so fine. There is a fuel station nearby with some food, with some drinks. But apart from that, it's a very deserted area. It looks more like a construction site. I think they will make it better in the future. But for the time being, you bring your own food here and you wait until your car is charged. So I will give it three on 10 points. But I hope they will improve it in the future. Bye-bye. Now, you know. Thank you so much for doing supercharger reviews. It's lovely to see superchargers all over the world. And we got a lot more superchargers that people are going to have to be covering. Let's see if we make it to 7,000, shall we? Let's do it. Alright. Number 44 in Austria is the 8th stall version 4 in Wien, Austria. Number 15 in Poland is the 12th stall version 4 in Gluech, Poland. Number 84 in Hong Kong is the 4th stall in Tongchung, Hong Kong. Number 182 in Texas is the 8th stall version 4 in Catula. The 4th stall version 2 in Shenzhen, China. Number 125 in Japan is the 6th stall version 3 in Yokohama. Number 27 in Thailand is the 4th stall in Konkon, Thailand. Number 81 in Spain is the 8th stall version 4 in Granada. Number 90 in Pennsylvania is the 12th stall in Barkeville, Pennsylvania. Number 166 in South Korea is the 4th stall in Dijon. The 2th stall in Hichi, China. The 3th stall in Ninggu, China. The 3th stall in Suquan, China. The 3th stall in Chongqing, China. The 6th stall in Guangzhou, China. And number 2171 in China is the 3th stall in Kangzhou, China. Number 81 in North Carolina is the 12th stall version 4 at Moorhead City, North Carolina. Number 182 in Florida is the 16th stall version 4 in Orlando. And number 6979 in the world. 2517 in the United States. And number 523 in California is the 16th stall version 4 in Fresno, California. We missed hitting 7,000 in the world by just 21. 21 Superchargers. So hopefully next week, hopefully next year, we will have 7,000 Superchargers in the world. This year I think we hit the 6,000 mark. Yeah, correct? They're adding 8,000. I mean, they're adding over 1,000 Superchargers a year. Well, and I want to talk about that here. So first of all, big shout out to supercharge.info for all the data on the Superchargers every week. Something I wanted to point out, though, is looking at the changes by month chart, which they have on their website. It shows planned Superchargers in blue. So take a look at this. In just the last four months, look how big those blue lines are. That is a huge number of planned Superchargers that at some point will go through permitting and construction and get put online. So that's never been seen before in the history of the Supercharger network. And I just want to point out that they're adding a lot more density, but they're also adding a lot more land growth, if you want to call it that, like covered area, places all the way from like Mexico to, as we're seeing in Eastern Europe and Asia. So it's getting really exciting because pretty soon I'm going to just drive my car all the way around the world. Thank you so much for spending your valuable time with us today. So as we enter the new year 2025, the halfway point of the decade, we wanted to ask you, what was your highlight moment of 2024, and what are you most looking forward to in 2025? Let us know in the comments below. I'll start us off. The mechazilla chopsticks catch of the Starship Super Heavy booster was my absolute hands down highlight of 2025. And no surprise, I'm looking forward to full autonomy in 2025. I think Tesla has a good chance of reaching it. Jesse, what's yours? Well, you did steal the Starship Heavy catch, which obviously, he could be yours too. My second, I guess, would be Nolan Darba getting the Neuralink chip implanted in his brain. Yeah, he's had it in there for almost a whole year now. Even though he doesn't have use of his limbs, he's still able to control the computer all by himself. I think it's been so great to follow him on X, you guys should do that. Honestly, I think that Neuralink is what I'm most excited for in 2025. Wow, yeah, the robotic arms and legs maybe. More people being able to hopefully gain more access to computers and going forward, hopefully, either gaining senses like hearing and sight, but also use of limbs, whether robotic or their own actual body parts. Again, that would be pretty big for me. I mean, yeah, Optimus is cool and everything, but humans are awesome. So thank you so much for watching. Join us next week, next year for yet another year of Tesla Time News. Thanks so much for watching, everybody.
