- Okay cool, here we go, Q&A.
And I haven't read these,
so please be respectful in them.
(laughs)
Ken Breedlove asks,
"Hi, Ben. I watched your video
"on ceramic coating.
"Will be picking up my S75D
"in Charlotte, North Carolina, mid June.
"I'm seriously considering taking it
"to a certified detailing shop near me.
"Give us your impressions of the value
"of having this done."
Well, Ken, I think
it makes a lot of sense
if you are spending a lot
of money on a product like this
that you do something to protect it.
It really, I think,
comes down to your driving habits
and the longevity.
If you're gonna have it for a long time,
you wanna protect it.
If you drive a lot
on freeways, you're gonna get rocks
and things thrown at ya'.
It's just gonna happen.
So, I think,
it makes a whole lot of sense
to protect it.
I don't know why I have the headphones on.
That's better.
So, I agree.
I think you definitely should check it out.
The guys I used here in San Diego,
so obviously, you're not gonna
come out here for that,
but you can go, I believe,
to Cquartz.com and look
for authorized installers.
They're the ones that did the,
that's the type of the manufacturer
of the ceramic coating I use.
If, depending on your situation,
though, I'm not gonna prescribe
that's what you should go do.
I think you should talk to someone
that is a Cquartz installer,
cuz' these guys are some
of the best of the best,
and they hopefully will kind of
help you navigate this process.
For example, I don't know
how long I'm gonna keep mine,
my Model 3 cuz' I may get
the performance one if that comes
out soon enough, and so, I didn't
do a wrap, but if you really wanted
to do it long term,
you could get a wrap, like a clear
if you like that, or a satin
or a matt, if you like those kind of things,
and then get a ceramic coating
on top of that.
The ceramic coating will help protect
all that or make it easier to clean.
It'll give it more shine.
And the wrap will kind of do
the more serious protection.
You don't have to wrap
the entire car but you can just do
some of the key parts and all that.
But again, if you go to Cquartz.com
and look for an authorized installer,
find somebody good in your area,
they should be able to walk you through that.
So, congratulations again.
Thanks for using the referral code, as well.
And yes, make sure to send me a pic
and let me know how it goes.
Mservice asks, "I've seen posts recently
"that some Model 3 owners are seeing
"big jumps in their electric bills
"when they home charge.
"Some bills appear to be higher
"than what owners who pay
"if you were still driving ICE cars."
Well, obviously.
"Have you seen an increase
"in your electric bill?
"I do understand you are in SoCal
"and prices are higher than average.
"Also, installing solar, will this
"keep the electric costs."
Yeah, okay, so I've actually done this before.
I broke it down.
Yeah, okay, so, an electric car compared
to an ICE car, well, an Ice car you
don't plug in at all, so there's that.
The electric car will eat a ton
of energy, that is absolutely true.
When I got mine, I saw about
a $60 to $70 a month jump in my bill,
which was about, I think my bill
was under a hundred bucks at the time,
so it was pretty high.
So yeah, it's gonna happen, for sure.
Now, that's when, and I recommend
going solar, going with solar,
and so with solar,
what I ended up doing
was I used a website called EnergySage,
and let me see if I can,
I think it's Teslanomics.co/EnergySage,
Let me just pull that up
and make sure that that works.
Yeah, so if you go to Teslanomics.co/EnergySage
that will redirect you over.
I have kind of a partner deal with them
and I loved it.
I did a video on it awhile ago
because what you do on EnergySage
is, you punch in your electric bill.
I think you just upload it
and then you can use your Google Maps
to pin your house so you know
the directionality of your roof line
and then installers go on there,
it's like a market place,
and they come up with a quote
and they submit it and then EnergySage
puts in this really awesome dashboard
to compare exactly what products they're looking
to install, what the cost per kilowatt hour is,
the net kind of out of it,
what the total installation costs would be.
Meanwhile, none of the installers
get your personal information.
So, you're not getting bombarded
by sales people.
It all goes through EnergySage.
I think it's incredibly valuable.
So, that's what I would recommend.
And I think once you get an electric car,
it is like,
almost always then makes sense to get solar.
Solar's a different animal.
You may or may not get it,
depending on your home situation.
But if you can, with an electric car,
it makes total sense.
Me, I have two electric cars
and solar, so I haven't really noticed
any difference in my bill
because I still have a negative,
about $180 balance with the local utility.
So, there's a lot to unpack there.
Yeah, it's gonna go up.
Yes, you should get solar.
Go check out Teslanomics.co/EnergySage
if you are going solar
to see the exact system and process I used.
Thanks for the question.
Alright,
this is Lasselukas.
"We'd like to see an ongoing chart
"with benefits of EV vs Ice
"to refer to misinformed critics of EVs."
Yeah, yeah, that's a big ask.
I think Autolist and Edmunds
and a lot of these guys do that.
Edmunds is probably a good one
where you can do the true cost
of ownership and just compare 'em.
But I would recommend going
and checking them out.
Thanks for the comment.
Phil asks, "Sources state
"that Tesla's autopilot processing board
"is insufficient to achieve level five autonomy
"and may require significant costly recalls.
"What do you think?"
Okay, so, I mean, I don't,
the source for this is Elon himself.
He said it on the earnings call
that they believe everything should be fine,
however, there may be a CPU upgrade
or a GPU, CPU, whatever the board is
that they use to process it.
So, he himself said that
but he also said it was a simple install
in that it wouldn't take long
and all that, so the question,
and Ryan on RideLighting podcast
asked it, I said,
"well if that's the case,
"and you're charging the added thousand dollars
"to go from before to after, right,
"if you place your full soft driving order
"before you pick it up,
"it's three thousand, afterwards it's four thousand,
"if you need hardware in there,
"is that included in the thousand
"or is it more?"
Because the labor should be pretty straight forward.
And even like a high end gaming GPU system
is like six hundred buck.
So, at their costs, it should be minimal.
So, I don't know if the media, I
haven't seen those articles,
but maybe people are blowing
that out of proportion.
Yeah, it's what they do unfortunately.
So, yeah, but it should be a big deal.
If you listen to earnings call,
Elon talks about it
and addresses that specifically.
Thanks for the question, Phil.
Carlo asks, "Hi, Ben.
"Trying to get an electrician
"to install my power wall.
"Can you tell me how many amps
"the Model 3 draws when charging?
"Are there different options we
"should be looking at with respect
"to wire size?
"I'm unsure of how the
"whole charging system works."
So, hmm.
I'm not an expert
nor am I an electrician.
So, well, I'll tell you
what I do know
and it's kind of separate
than your question.
So, here's the first thing.
Here's the first part of that.
The charger is in the car, right,
and the car itself can control
how much it can actually handle.
At my house, it's connected
to a 40 amp circuit and so, I
can adjust it to 40 amps.
I have the Nema 1450,
if getting a wall charger, I believe you
can go to 48.
But you can check the Tesla website
for the details on that.
All of that is like separate
than your power wall.
Your power wall setup
is gonna be a different animal.
I would, yeah,
find an electrician.
I think Tesla even has links
to provide them or to find them.
They'll be able to help understand
all of that, but as far as regards
to charging your Model 3,
the thing that'll make the most difference
is either the wall charger or the plug
and my philosophy on that
is that if you have a nice garage,
get the wall charger, makes sense.
It looks nice.
It is faster.
If you don't, if your garage is whatever,
like mine is kind of,
like studs and just stuff everywhere,
it's really a utility,
not a fashionable thing.
The Nema 1450 outlet is fine.
So, save you five hundred bucks there.
So, they have it.
That's kind of my philosophy on it.
Sorry, I don't have more specific answers
on that but hopefully,
your electrician can help you with that.
Thanks for the question, Carlo.
Okay, Wayne G. Asks,
"Hi, Ben. Have you seen
"the Bloomberg Model 3 tracker numbers today?"
I have not.
"The per week totals have been reduced dramatically
"but the total car numbers have been increased."
Yeah, so, there was a,
on the earnings call and in the letter,
update letter that they talked about it
where there was two stoppages
for maintenance and updates and things
like that, and so this could be
the second one or the model
is slow to respond, so that could
have been from the previous stoppage.
All of that is kind of a thing
that, yeah, that's it.
So, I think it varies and it depends
on that and the model itself may not be,
it's not like Tesla's providing these numbers.
So, how they track it and all that,
it has it's own kind of behavior
outside of what reality may be.
I think that's probably what it's related to.
Thanks for the question, Wayne.
Leo Lam asks, "Does the Model 3
"have a valet mode where the valet
"does not have access to the glove compartment
"or trunk, like the valet key
"on ICE vehicles?"
I believe it does.
It would be under the profile settings.
And there's someone else,
it's like 1ITesla or something.
I watched his video, okay,
here, I wanna give him credit
where credit's due cuz' he had
a video on this.
I didn't find it,
it wasn't like the most interesting
thing to me, so I didn't watch it
but the other video he did I thought
was fascinating, so let me look
it up here.
Model 3, woodgrained, stained, ITesla.
I'm searching on YouTube right now.
Okay, cool, it's I1Tesla
and he has a video.
The video I really liked, he's
a carpenter and the video I really liked,
he actually took off the woodgrained paneling
and stained it and then put it back on.
That seemed like way too much work for me,
not being a carpenter.
I probably would have painted it.
But I believe he has a video
explaining valet mode in there.
I believe it does have it
and it's just in the settings there, so anyways,
there you go, yeah.
I believe it does.
Go check out his video.
Really good stuff.
I'm a big fan.
TalkTesla asks, "Hey, Ben,
"what big numbers do you think Musk
"is referring to when says
"the short burn of the century is coming?
"Do you think he'll outperform
"the tsunami of hurt he referenced in 2012?"
I don't remember the tsunami of hurt.
Okay, so, context,
if you guys aren't familiar.
Elon is talking, he's tweeting
that they're gonna have
the short burn of the century,
which eludes to them becoming profitable
is what I take that as.
If they can actually become profitable in Q3,
that will be insane.
And the shorts will be really hurting.
They profited a little bit
by those analysts, so you wanna definitely
throw them a bone there,
unintentionally, I think.
But we'll see more as the quarters roll out.
I think Q2's gonna be an interesting one.
I don't think they're going to hit
the 200,000 mark and the reason I say that,
which triggers the tax credit phase out
they call it, I don't think they're
gonna hit that in Q2
and I say that because they're pushing
a lot of stuff out
and I know people there
that have kind of hinted at that,
so, we'll see if that's true or not.
But then, the reason I bring that up
is cuz' then in Q3,
they could have the burn of
the century happen cuz' they're just crushing
it by producing all these cars.
They've actually held off on delivering
a lot of Model S Next vehicles until June
and that'll probably be very late June,
that way, right when July starts,
they'll just be cranking them out.
So, I think there's a strategy here
and Q2's gonna look pretty bad
from an earnings standpoint
and it's strategic.
That's all the say that maybe the utilities
that want to extend and remove
the 200,000 cap, maybe they get their way
and none of this matters,
but that's my guess.
I don't know, stay tuned, we'll see
and good luck with the podcast.
Tom K. asks, "The press on Tesla over the last year
"has been pretty relentlessly negative.
"It seems to me, though, that
"what Tesla has done so far, ramping up
"to almost 10,000 Model 3s a month
"in addition to the Model S
"and Model X units being produced,
"Elon may be overoptimistic,
"but the company and what it has done
"is heading towards nothing like
"what short sellers describe.
"Thoughts?"
Yeah, we're in the trough of delusionment,
or disillusion, I forget what it's called.
So, if you look up the hype cycle
for technology, we've passed the peak hype.
Now we're kind of in this trough
where everything is just negative
and it's just ah.
And then as they become profitable,
you know, 10,000 a week is crazy,
but once they get to say 5,000
a week of cars, I think we're
gonna come to this kind of enlightenment state.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla
becomes the most valuable company
in the world, surpassing Apple.
I'm sorry, U.S. based company.
So yeah, good question, Tom.
Hang on, it's a fun ride, you know.
Alright guys, I'm gonna do
a couple more here.
Carlos asks, "Any comments on Munro's Model 3 review?"
No, don't care.
Don't know who he is.
Not a concern to me.
BioTech asks, "Hi, Ben. Not sure
"if this has been asked before,
"but what do you think
"about dual model Model 3 will have
"a little bit more range
"or shorter range than what I can order."
It'll have a little bit more.
I would think if they would have advertised
it as a longer range option.
Yeah, it'll have a little bit more,
if it follows the same conventions
as the remainder, as the Model S and X,
because those, it's two smaller engines
and they're a little bit more efficient.
Then the performance one probably won't be
as efficient because it has a bigger motor, etc,
and so yeah, it should be a little bit more.
I think it's negligible, though.
I wouldn't but it for that reason, certainly.
Certainly, it wouldn't matter.
Like if you go from 310 to 315, 320,
doesn't matter, honestly.
It shouldn't matter anyways.
Thanks for the question.
Alright guys, I'll do a couple more here.
"Ben, there was a link to download
"the Model 3 owner's manual a while ago.
"Do you know it?"
I don't.
You should just be able to Google it.
It's online, it's public.
Todd asks, "I'd like to know
"about blind spot monitors in Model 3.
"They aren't apparently in the mirrors,
"but they aren't really on the screen either."
Yeah, there's like a little bubble wave
that appears, like a little sound wave
kind of thing.
But it's not really like a great blind spot warning
that has an audible tone
or anything crazy.
I hope that they enable it,
cuz' that's definitely one of the things
that's not great in the car.
Thanks for the question, Todd.
BioTech asks, "Hi, Ben.
"What is all this talk about a candy company?"
So, Elon was tweeting kind of madness
on Saturday, I think.
Something about, apparently, he
was watching Willy Wonka
and he was talking about starting
a candy company and Warren Buffet owns See's Candies
or Berkshire Hathaway owns See's Candies
so he and Warren Buffet were going at it.
It was kind of funny.
I don't know.
That'd be nuts to me.
I don't see how that would make sense at all.
Cyborg Dragon, which he also tweeted about,
may make sense.
We'll see.
Okay, PRNMatt, "Autopilot laggin in M3.
"Aside from meeting key production, M3 targets
"for Q3-4, meeting industry expectations
"on autopilot is big for the Tesla future.
"Your thoughts on the recent key resignation
"on autopilot development team
"and actual goals."
Yeah okay, interesting.
So, the Autopilot team actually,
the guy that left to go work
on ships was important,
but he wasn't the head of it.
And I think this guy's name is Peter,
and then you have the AI team which
is really dominating the thing.
Elon talked about it.
I don't think it's a big deal.
I don't know if level three even makes sense.
I've heard some people argue
that we should skip level three
and I kind of agree with that.
We should go from where we're
at now, driver assist,
to full autonomy, because that interchange
is gonna be difficult and there's some
other folks that are talking about that online.