Tesla Roadster delay, EV deliveries, battery swap comes back, and more

Frederic Lambert (0:00)

We are live for a new episode of the Electrek Podcast. I am Frederic Lambert, your host, and as usual, I'm joined by Seth Weintraub. How are we doing this week, Seth?

Seth Weintraub (0:07)

I'm good.

Frederic Lambert (0:09)

All right. I coming straight back from Victoria, BC, Vancouver Island, where I got to test out. Ah, beautiful town, beautiful island, just beautiful part of the country. Got to drive the EV3 on a bunch of logging roads all over the island. It was a ton of fun, beautiful. I'm under embargo on the driving impressions. So I cannot tell you the details of it until next week. So I'll do that on the next week's podcast, but I'm also going to have a feature on Electrek about it on the 6th, because the embargo does end the 6th. So that's Tuesday morning.

All right. So that's not a driving impression. I guess I didn't say that, but my working title right now for it is the Kia EV3 First Drive, the affordable EV we've been waiting for.

We've been waiting for it in the US, I mean, in Canada, because obviously it's been in best-selling car in Europe for a little bit. So it's for pretty much the US market. But yeah, so I wanted to update you on that because I know everything I mentioned in the last episode. The other thing that we talked about, Seth and I, in the last episode, we said that stay tuned for the next one, because the next one we're going to talk about the Roadster unveiling on October 1st.

Seth Weintraub (1:30)

What happened?

Frederic Lambert (1:32)

I was anticipating that pretty much half of the episode today would be about the Roadster.

Obviously not because it got delayed. It got delayed by how much time, Seth?

Seth Weintraub (1:40)

Exactly two weeks.

Frederic Lambert (1:43)

For weather. Yeah, Tesla's excuse is the weather. It's specifically high wind, which is true. There was high wind on the first, and thunderstorms and rain. There's not good weather in Austin. Not in Austin, actually. It's in Waco. In Texas, in general, there was not great weather this week. But it's already cleared up.

It's already cleared up.

I don't know if I trust them. To be fair, they have to delay it for two weeks because of the weather.

I think there might be more to it than that. It would be surprising. So we're not holding our breath for another two weeks because it could be delayed again. I wouldn't be shocked whatsoever. So yeah, the Roadster, we won't talk about it too much today, but still, I still believe there's going to be a demo in the near future. I just don't know when exactly. There's a lot of information coming out right now, including a new patent for Fan Car, for a Fan Car with the Doct Fan. So we're going to talk a little bit about that later, because we think it might be related to the Roadster. But first off, let's talk about Rivian, Seth. Today, you reported on the delivery and production number for Rivian, and it's looking pretty good, right?

Seth Weintraub (3:06)

Yeah, they keep increasing pretty steadily. That's what you want to see, and especially against the greater, some companies are cutting back on EVs. It's good to see Rivian that continues to grow steady. Actually, significantly, 58 percent, quarter-over-quarter surge in vehicle deliveries from quarter 2 to quarter 3 Obviously, that's the R2 ramp happening.

I think overall, customers are pretty happy with the R2. Folks are getting the word out that, hey, this is a great car, even though they just started making them.

They're selling as many as they can. Anecdotally, I'm very tempted to jump in. I have a reservation and initially, I had promised myself I'd wait to the vehicle to load, a vehicle to X came out, and also the LiDAR hardware update, which as you reported got pushed to 2027 unless you're a Rivian employee, and I'm willing to be an employee to get some hardware.

Frederic Lambert (4:14)

Yeah, because now it sounds like you would have to wait a little deeper into 2027 if you really want the R2. Yeah, that's frustrating. If you want to wait for the LiDAR, yeah.

It might change the equation a little bit.

Seth Weintraub (4:28)

Yeah, but it looks good. The stock is up. It was up.

Frederic Lambert (4:32)

I think it went down after it. It was up at first and then it went back down.

Seth Weintraub (4:36)

Okay.

Frederic Lambert (4:38)

Let me look.

Seth Weintraub (4:39)

Yeah, it went down.

Frederic Lambert (4:40)

Yeah, like it was up like 3% and then down 3% on that day. And it doesn't make sense because if you look at the details of it and if I have one complaint on Rivian's reporting here is like they don't break down the R2. Yeah, I know. It's very Tesla-like on that. Like you just show us the health of your vehicle program. Because they have like 3 very different vehicle program. Not like the Amazon van, the delivery van. The R1S, R1T, I don't care that much. I'm sure that the R1S is more popular, but you can combine them together.