Rivian R2, Lucid counter attack, and Tesla's 'Digital Optimus'
Electrek
9to5Mac
4.3 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Rivian R2, Lucid's counterattack, and Tesla's 'Digital Optimus'.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Musk confirms xAI-Tesla joint ‘Digital Optimus’ project — after saying Tesla didn’t need xAI
- Rivian reveals full R2 lineup and pricing, starting at $57,990 with a $45K RWD model coming later
- Rivian is phasing out the R1S Dual Standard, its most affordable SUV, ahead of the R2
- Lucid (LCID) reveals Cosmos and Earth SUVs as first midsize EVs, starting under $50,000
- Lucid takes aim at the Tesla Cybercab with Lunar, a two-seat EV robotaxi concept
- BMW’s flagship i7 EV is getting a Neue Klasse upgrade: Here’s our first look
- BYD is open to building cars in Canada and acquiring a rival automaker
- BYD’s luxury EV with 5 min fast charging and nearly 500 miles of range is headed overseas
- Honda is scrapping three of its most important EVs for the US, including the Acura RSX
- Aptera (SEV) raises $6.3M through warrant exercise to fund solar electric vehicle validation
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | And we are live for a new episode of the Electric Podcast. |
| 0:07.6 | I am Fred Lambert, your host. |
| 0:09.4 | And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Wintra. |
| 0:12.2 | How are you doing this week's Ed? |
| 0:13.8 | I'm good. |
| 0:15.1 | All right. |
| 0:15.9 | Let's jump right in. |
| 0:18.0 | We have just one Tesla article this week, which is going to please a lot of you guys |
| 0:22.8 | who don't like to talk about too much I mean we wrote plenty of other articles this week about |
| 0:26.9 | Tesla but mainly about like people leaving and things that are things that are I don't think |
| 0:32.4 | it's worth mention in the podcast but the big one this week was this digital optimist stuff. |
| 0:40.0 | And I mean, I wrote the whole article about it and still have issues understanding what |
| 0:48.3 | it is exactly. The whole thing is happening. I mean, this kind of complete breakdown that's happening at XAI right now. |
| 0:58.2 | You even had Elon yesterday admitting that XAI was built wrong from the start and now it needs to be rebuilt completely. |
| 1:06.4 | It follows a ton of people exiting the company. |
| 1:09.2 | Literally 10 out of the 12 co-founders have left the company the last few months. |
| 1:17.0 | A ton of important people have left. |
| 1:19.3 | And now last week we discussed about this thing going on where the optimist brain might be developed by X-A-I, something that, you know, |
| 1:35.2 | and as previously said, would not happen. |
| 1:37.9 | And now he's confirmed it and went a little bit further, kind of merging two things together. |
| 1:43.8 | What he now calls digital optimists. So the. he's confirmed it and went a little bit further kind of merging two things together that what |
| 1:44.8 | he now calls digital optimists so basically the brain of optimist and micro hard so for those |
... |
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