Podcast: Tesla Cybercab launch, Cybertruck prices rise, VW launch electric camper, and more

**Frederic Lambert** (0:00)
We are live for a new episode of the Electric Podcast. I'm Frederic Lambert, your host, and I'm joined by Seth Weintraub. How are you doing, Seth? I'm good. All right. A quick thank you to today's sponsor, GM EV Charging, made easy with Energy Pass and Plug and Charge. Learn more at gmenergy.gm.com/energypass.
We're gonna talk a little bit more about them and their latest effort to make charging easier for electric vehicle owners.
All right. But before we do that, we have plenty to talk about. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Cybercab lunch that was announced this weekend. At the very end of the show, I'm gonna give you my predictions on what's gonna happen there. So stay tuned for that. It's gonna be interesting. We're gonna talk about the Cybertruck price increase, which is puzzling for most people. So really looking forward to hear your take on that set. And I'll show you guys take on it if you want to put it in the comment section. I'm gonna talk about the Tesla Semi-Factory being integrated later next month. Waymo taking some shot at Tesla, which was interesting. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo EV first drive that Seth's gonna tell us everything about.
BYD releasing their Q2 profit or Q2 earnings. Volkswagen releasing their Electric Camper Van, but don't expect to have access to it anytime soon. And App Terra also releasing some third party independent testing of their solar system on their cars, which was very encouraging to hear. But let's start about the Cybercab launch.
It was confirmed in a message to, well, in a tweet really on social media that's gonna happen next week on September 3rd, which I think is Thursday, next Thursday. And no details or anything. The only thing that happened with that is that Tesla launched some kind of small contest to, the more you ride in the RuboTaxi service until this weekend, I think, you increases your chances of being invited to the event. That's about it.
It's resulting in a pretty funny situation, Seth, where people are just going nuts trying to get an invite. And Tesla's RuboTaxi service needs the demand for it, because as we saw, demand actually, usability of the system went down. Total mileage went down from Q1 to Q2. So this is going to be a nice boost for Tesla to use the system. But the way people are using it for it is like, it's really a representation of the RuboTaxi service a year and two the program, where they are literally taking a 0.2 mile ride, RuboTaxi, that's a block or two blocks a ride, then being dropped off and then going back to their original destination, back and forth, back and forth, just literally driving in circle for a half a block to just get more mileage, more rides into the... Because I think it wasn't clear if it was more ride or more mileage in it, so people are just going back and forth. As I saw someone getting, I think 500 rides over 500 miles and 80 miles, 80 miles and 500 miles. Someone got like 100 miles and 80... 100 rides and 80 miles. It makes no sense.
Yeah, it's really emblematic of the Tesla Google Taxi program a year in. So at the very end of the show, we're going to dive a little bit deeper into what this could be, because obviously there was a Cybercab unveiling, Cybercab launch just less than two years ago, really. So why another one? So we're going to give our prediction about exactly what should happen next week. And I would love to hear about you guys, what are you going to say about it. But next, a big surprise that happened this week, Tesla increased the price of the Cybercab, the Cybercab, I was just talking about the Cybercab, Cybertruck by $5,000 for both trims. Well, there's actually three trims now. So for both of the base trims, so the dual motor all will drive and then the premium all will drive. So obviously, normally a price increase means that there's very good demand for the vehicle and you can afford to increase the price. It's not always the case, because obviously more SNX is the exception to the rule. Tesla did increase the prices of more SNX despite demand just falling off a cliff over the last few years. And then they can't sell the vehicle. So it's not...
Because I see a lot of Tesla fans interpreting it as, oh, this is great news. Does this mean that demand is through the roof? Not necessarily, because obviously, as you know, Cybertruck has been operating at basically 10% of its production capacity due to demand issues. And two things that are very interesting about this. First, the dual motor all-wheel drive, which was launched just earlier this year and was originally launched at $60,000. And at $60,000, I was the first to say, not a bad deal for what it is compared to the premium version that was $80,000 at the time. So for $20,000 or less, you had a pretty good deal. A lot better than what Tesla released last year, which was the single motor Cybertruck, which I think was also $60,000. I'm not mistaken. I don't remember the price of it, but the deal was bad. I mean, they sold fewer than 200 of them.