New Tesla Highland Rumors, GM’s Struggles on Display

Hey everybody Rob Maurer here and today we are going to be talking about some rumors out of China on the Highland Model 3. We also have updated wholesale sales numbers, some news on Fremont, and a couple other items as well. Strong out performance for Tesla on the day today finishing up 2% to close at $259.32 while the Nasdaq was down a tenth of a percent on the day. Kind of interesting after hours, we did have reports from Amazon and Apple. Both actually beat earnings expectations, so at least after the initial report now, Amazon is up pretty significantly after hours on a more significant beat. Apple with a smaller beat, their stock is actually down a bit after hours. That tapered off a little bit of the initial enthusiasm that the overall market reflected after Amazon's report, but as always these will take time to digest and there's always going to be the concern with stronger earnings that oh maybe the Fed can then justify further rate increases a little bit more so it's just kind of a flavor of the day situation. But we are now through two more of the mega cap earnings reports.

大家好，我是Rob Maurer。今天我们要谈谈关于特斯拉在中国的一些谣言，我们还有最新的批发销售数字，关于弗里蒙特的一些新闻以及其他几个项目。特斯拉今天在股市表现强劲，收盘上涨2%，收于259.32美元，而纳斯达克指数则下跌了0.1%。有点有意思的是，在盘后交易时段，亚马逊和苹果都发布了业绩报告。事实上，两家公司的收入都超过了预期，所以至少初报后，亚马逊的股价在盘后交易中大幅上涨。苹果的超额收益较小，其股价在盘后交易中实际上有点下跌。这在一定程度上减弱了市场在亚马逊发布报告后的初期热情，但总体上来说，这些报告还需要时间去消化，而对于更强的盈利我们总会有一些担忧，也许联邦储备系统可以更加合理地设定进一步的利率增加幅度，这只是当下的情况而已。不过，我们已经看到了另外两家巨型公司的财报。

Alright getting into Tesla news, we've got a couple of items from China. We'll start with wholesale sales. These have now been reported for July about 64,300 for the month. Remember wholesale sales representing both retail or domestic sales and exports for that month. This is down about 30% month over month. It is the lowest number for Tesla so far this year, but it's also coming off the highest month of the year so far in June, where Tesla did draw down inventory. So wholesale sales pretty significantly exceeded production in June, which makes it hard for that number to be replicated then the following month. Still it is quite a bit lower than the average that we have seen from Tesla over the last few months.

好的，开始介绍特斯拉的最新消息，我们有几条来自中国的内容。我们先从批发销售开始说起。7月份的批发销售已经公布，大约为64,300辆。需要记住，批发销售包括零售或国内销售以及该月份的出口。与上个月相比，这个数字下降了约30%。这是特斯拉今年迄今为止的最低销售量，但也是在今年迄今为止最高销售月份六月份的销售量下滑后出现的。所以在六月份，特斯拉库存下降，批发销售大大超过了生产量，这就使得下一个月很难复制那个销售量。尽管如此，与特斯拉过去几个月的平均销售量相比，这个数字还是相当低的。

So what's going to be really interesting to see is the production number. We probably won't get that for roughly another week or so, but that should give us some really good insight into what exactly is going on with the Model 3. Remember there were rumors of production downtime in June for highland upgrades. Those didn't really seem to materialize with June gigashang high Model 3 production coming in at about 27,000 vehicles pretty much in line with where the production rate had previously been. As we await the July number then, that will give us more insight on if there was any downtime during that month, which if there were, that would be a significant contributor to the lower wholesale sales figure for July. So we'll come back to this when we get a little bit more of that data.

因此，真正有趣的将是生产数量。大约还需要大约一个星期左右才能得到这个数字，但这将为我们提供一些关于Model 3的详细了解。还记得六月份有关提高产能的停产传闻吗？实际上并没有发生，因为六月份Giga上海Model 3的产量约为27,000辆，基本与之前的产量持平。现在我们在等待七月份的数字，这将更多地揭示这个月是否存在停产。如果有停产的话，将会显著影响七月份批发销售额较低的原因。所以等我们获得更多的数据后，我们将再次回到这个问题上。

Now continuing forward with highland today there has been an influx of rumors out of China on the status of Project Highland. These are all rumors from social media so we have to take them for what it's worth, but each of these accounts at various points in time has had some sort of insider early information. Not 100% perfect track records, but enough that it's definitely worth paying attention to. And all of the rumors actually have a little bit of different information, so it doesn't seem like they're all just repeating each other from one rumor. Now when we have multiple rumors like this come out at the same time, although they all kind of fit together, could be a situation where Tesla's trying to uncover some leaks or something like that. So that's worth keeping in mind as well.

现在继续讨论高地项目的最新动态，近期来自中国的谣言涌入。这些都是社交媒体上的传闻，所以我们要正确对待，但这些账号在不同时期都接触过某种内幕消息。虽然它们并没有100%完美的准确记录，但也足够让人关注的了。而且，所有的传闻实际上都有一些不同的信息，所以看起来它们并非只是相互复述的传闻。当我们同时出现多个这样的传闻时，虽然它们都有一定连贯性，但也可能是特斯拉试图揭露一些泄漏情况之类的情况。所以这也值得我们注意。

That being said, let's look at some of this information. So first is from Wu Wai on X, saying that quote, according to online rumors, communication from suspected Tesla staff indicates that the current domestically produced Tesla Model 3 will be discontinued on August 14th. It is reported that the new Tesla Model 3 will officially be put into production in the third quarter end quote. Alright, so that's the first rumor. And then we have one that is very similar from Chris Zhang on Twitter saying that quote, Giga Shanghai started production switch over. Starting this week to produce two days of current Model 3, two days of highland production, alternate operation, and completely switched to highland production two weeks later end quote.

话虽如此，让我们来看一些这些信息。首先，来自Wu Wai关于X的消息称，根据网上的传闻，疑似特斯拉员工的交流显示，目前国产特斯拉Model 3将在8月14日停产。据报道，新的特斯拉Model 3将在第三季度开始正式投产。好的，那就是第一个谣言。然后我们有一个非常类似的消息来自Twitter上的Chris Zhang，他说：“Giga上海本周开始进行生产切换。一周中有两天生产目前的Model 3，两天生产Model 3高配版，交替运行，并在两周后完全切换到高配版生产。”

So this one is a little bit more specific in terms of what's exactly going on with production. The timelines are very slightly different, but close enough that I think they kind of match up. But it does sound a little bit strange that Tesla would do two days of current Model 3 production, or you know, what's going to be the old Model 3, and then the new Model 3 on two other days. I'm sure there are reasons that could make sense and maybe Tesla learned a little bit from the Model S and X refresh where they kind of just took it down and didn't really produce much for probably a quarter or so. So maybe they figure hey we can only really do two days of highland production we might as well on those other days produce Model 3. There are a ton of factors to consider to determine which of those plans nets out better economically. So it seems a bit odd, but I suppose there's a scenario where something like that could make sense.

所以这个问题在生产方面更具体一些。时间表有些微不同，但足够接近以至于我认为它们可以相互匹配。不过，特斯拉会在两天时间内生产现在的Model 3，或者你可以说旧版的Model 3，然后在另外两天时间内生产新版的Model 3，这听起来有点奇怪。我确定有一些原因可以解释这种做法，也许特斯拉从Model S和X的更新中学到了一些经验，他们在那个时候将其暂停，大约一个季度左右几乎没有生产。所以也许他们认为，嗨，我们可能只能保持两天的高产量，那就在其余的日子里生产Model 3吧。要确定哪种计划在经济上更有利，需要考虑大量因素。所以这听起来有些奇怪，但我想可能有一种情况下这样做是合理的。

Alright, the third rumor is from Tesla Shanghai. You may remember this account because it used to share insight ahead of the publishing of domestic sales in China, which was generally on not always but generally on. They seem to lose their source for that at some point, so it doesn't mean much for this, but nevertheless the rumor from them is that one, drought production has already begun. Mass deliveries will start in September ahead of initial expectations. I don't know if that refers to Tesla's expectations or more broadly. My guess is Tesla's because I think more broadly it was probably assumed to be a little bit earlier, at least in China. Number two, the project is highly confidential and as soon as the trial vehicle is produced it will be concealed. No surprise on that one. Number three, the new car has a more impressive design with taillight similar to a Porsche Macon and an overall feel similar to Model S. And four, the most exciting part is that based on the new project's component costs, the price of the new car is expected to be around 200,000 RMB. Prices are often kept confidential, but some speculation is possible. So the last part there definitely sounds like speculation around 200,000 would be around 28,000 US dollars. However, it's only one significant digit. So like we have talked about, you could say Tesla's current price of 232,000 RMB on the Model 3 is around 200,000. So I would definitely keep expectations and check on that one. And alongside that thought, they tweeted later today that the new Model 3 will use the internally coded BT43 battery, a lithium iron phosphate battery with longer range, more capacity without a price increase, a good and big deal. So that language of without a price increase, that's much less suggestive of a significantly lowered price for highland than those previous tweets may have implied. So obviously that could be something that we see, but it's not something that I necessarily expect just from this set of tweets. Anyway, sounds like there's going to be a lot of action on this over the next two to four weeks. So hopefully we get some more confirmation of these types of things relatively soon.

好的，第三个传言来自特斯拉上海。你可能还记得这个账号，因为之前它曾提前分享过特斯拉在中国国内销售的见解，通常是准确的，但并不总是。不过，他们似乎在某个时候失去了这方面的消息源，所以对于此传言来说并没有太大意义。但还是不管怎样，他们的传言是：首先，新车的生产早已开始。9月份将会开始大规模交付，较最初的预期要提前。我不知道这是指特斯拉的预期还是普遍来说的预期。我猜是特斯拉的预期，因为我认为普遍来说它可能会稍微早一点，至少在中国是这样的。第二，该项目高度保密，一旦试制车辆生产出来就会保密。这一点并不奇怪。第三，新车的设计更加令人印象深刻，尾灯类似于保时捷Macan，整体感觉类似于Model S。第四，最令人兴奋的部分是根据新项目的组件成本估计，新车的价格预计在20万元人民币左右。价格通常是保密的，但可以进行一些猜测。所以最后一部分明显是对200,000进行的猜测，大约是28,000美元。然而，这只是一个有效数字。正如我们之前讨论过的，你可以说特斯拉 Model 3 目前的价格232,000人民币大约是200,000左右。所以我肯定会对此持谨慎态度。此外，今天他们在推特上说，新款 Model 3 将使用内部编码为BT43的锂铁磷酸电池，续航里程更长，容量更大，但不增加价格，这是一笔很大的交易。所以没有价格上涨的说法，对于特斯拉来说，这并不意味着高地降价的幅度会很大。所以显然这可能是我们会看到的一些情况，但我并不是只靠这组推文就对此抱有太多期望。总之，听起来在接下来的两到四周内，这方面将有很多动作。希望我们能尽快得到一些更多关于这些传言的确认。

Alright, next up, we've got an update out of free month. This is from Tesla Roddy. They have found another permit that Tesla has filed for some expansion at free month. They say that Tesla yesterday filed a permit seeking approval for a new tent valued at around $750,000 with the permit reading installation of permanent tent at road, light tunnel structure, electrical and controls. So over the years, Tesla has of course gotten a lot of attention about these so called tents or sprung structures. They seem to have worked out well enough that it's no longer quite as attention grabbing as it once was, but yet another sign of some significant updates happening at free month.

好的，接下来我们有一则来自于Free Month的更新消息。这是来自Tesla Roddy的消息。他们发现了一份特斯拉提交的扩建申请。他们说，特斯拉昨天提交了一项价值约为75万美元的新帐篷的申请，申请中提到安装永久帐篷、道路、灯光隧道结构、电气和控制。多年来，特斯拉一直因所谓的帐篷或弹簧结构而备受关注。它们似乎表现得足够好，以至于它不再像过去那样引人注目，但这又是Free Month发生重大更新的另一个迹象。

Next, we've got a quick update on Tesla's advertising project, I guess, for the lack of a better word, but Yashu of hit that bid on Twitter noting that Tesla is now running about 43 ads on Google. So that's up a bit from where we had last discussed it. I think it was around 10 to 20 at that point in time. So Tesla seems to be in the testing and learning stage and slowly expanding their efforts, at least on Google AdWords, and will continue to wait and see to what extent that expands to other forms of media.

接下来，我们对特斯拉的广告项目进行了简要更新。我猜，也不好说确切的说法，但Twitter上的hitthatbid的Yashu指出，特斯拉现在在谷歌上投放了大约43个广告。所以相较于我们上次讨论时，这有所增加。我记得当时大约只有10到20个广告。所以特斯拉似乎还处于测试和学习阶段，慢慢扩大他们的努力，至少在谷歌AdWords上，并且我们将继续等待并观察这种努力在其他媒体形式上扩展的程度。

Next, a quick update on the cyber truck seems like every day we get new photos, new videos, so we won't keep sharing every single lot of those. But a couple of nice shots here of the winter testing from New Zealand, so always cool to see the cyber truck in that environment.

接下来，关于Cybertruck的最新消息，似乎每天我们都会得到新的照片、视频，所以我们不会把每一组这些内容都分享出来。但是这里有一些来自新西兰的冬季测试的精彩拍摄，看到Cybertruck在那种环境下总是很酷。

Alright, last couple of things for today, we had previously talked about GM's release of specs and updated pricing with the starter production for the Chevy Blazer EV, which is on the Altium platform for GM. And those prices came in $7,000 to $10,000 more expensive than GM had previously announced. We now have another update that GM has canceled their plans to build the cheapest version, the one LT trim, which was supposed to be the opening price point vehicle at $45,000. So maybe GM does something with that in the future, but for now that trim is canceled, automotive news says that a Chevy spokesperson told them that the brand envisions higher level trims of the Equinox EV to meet the needs of the potential customers for that lower price Blazer trim. Quote, it gives us room to position and market the vehicles without overlap end quote. So they're making this vehicle more expensive than they initially announced and they're going to cover that gap by making their other vehicle more expensive to just slide up into that remaining price point. Sounds like a great plan provided they could sell those vehicles, which will obviously be the question.

好的，今天最后要讲的几件事情，我们之前提到过通用汽车发布了雪佛兰Blazer EV的规格和更新定价，这款车使用的是通用汽车的Altium平台。这些定价比通用汽车之前宣布的价格高了7000到10000美元。我们现在有了一个更新，通用汽车取消了他们建造最便宜版本——LT系列的计划，这款车原本定价为45000美元。也许通用汽车将来会对此做出一些改变，但目前这个系列被取消了。据汽车新闻报道，雪佛兰发言人告诉他们，该品牌计划推出Equinox EV的更高级别款式，以满足那些希望以更低价格购买Blazer的潜在客户的需求。他们说：“这样我们就有了将这些车辆定位和推广而不会重叠的空间”。所以他们通过让其他车型变得更贵来弥补这一价格差距。听起来是个很好的计划，只要他们能销售这些车辆，这显然是问题所在。

So Chevy slash GM has now updated the Blazer page on the website with the increased prices. Remember that had not been updated previously, and they've also removed the one LT trim. They do actually still have it listed on their little color selection tool, but they've mostly removed it. And with these increased prices, you can now see that the lowest price version seems to start at about $57,000. So it seems that this vehicle that was announced to start at $45,000 is now starting at $57,000. So it's incredibly difficult to see the value proposition here compared to a Model Y. So this probably isn't going to receive much attention, but this is a much bigger deal than the attention that it will receive because again, this is the Altium platform. This is their next generation platform. And they've now had to raise prices more than $10,000 above what they initially announced. And these are probably still going to be losing money. And how are they going to compete with Tesla at these prices? Which if they can't do, how do they then grow economies of scale? And if they can't do that, where did they go from here?

雪佛兰划伤了通用汽车（GM）与升级的价格更新了Blazer车型在其网站上的页面。之前这个页面还没有被更新，他们还删除了一款LT款式。虽然在他们的颜色选择工具上依然列出了这款车型，但是删除了大部分信息。而且随着这些价格上涨，你现在可以看到最低价版本的起价大约为57,000美元。所以看起来这款车型最开始宣布的起价为45,000美元，现在已经涨到了57,000美元。所以与Model Y相比，非常难以看到其价值提案。所以这可能不会引起太多关注，但这对于接收到的关注来说更重要，因为这是Altium平台，这是他们的下一代平台。他们现在不得不将价格提高10,000美元以上，超过了最初的宣布。而且这些车型可能仍然会亏本。在这些价格上，他们将如何与特斯拉竞争？如果他们做不到，他们如何扩大规模经济？如果他们做不到这一点，他们接下来会去哪里？

We've been in this period where these automakers could just announce their future plans, GM talking about all these different models that they're going to offer by certain years. Eventually, they've got to deliver. And we've seen here with the blazer that those plans don't really mean anything. You can say you're going to sell this vehicle at $45,000. But if you actually start selling it at $57,000, it's going to play out a little bit differently, especially when you've got Tesla on the other side really not too concerned with their present-day margins and just going all out on volume, going down the price curve, and having already achieved scale that these automakers are only hoping to achieve someday.

在过去的一段时间里，这些汽车制造商可以随意宣布他们未来的计划，比如通用汽车(GM)谈论他们将在特定年份推出的各种不同车型。但最终，他们必须兑现承诺。而我们在这款blazer上看到，这些计划并不是真的意味着什么。你可以说你要以45,000美元的价格销售这辆车。但如果你实际上以57,000美元开始销售，情况就会有所不同，尤其是当你看到特斯拉(Tesla)这边真的不太关心他们现在的利润率，而是全力以赴追求销量，调整价格曲线，并且已经实现了这些汽车制造商仅仅希望在未来实现的规模。

It's just like the dealership stuff that we talked about a couple of days ago. Eventually, push comes to shove, and that takes a while on the auto market. But there's absolutely a scenario here where these plans from these other legacy automakers kind of stall out and they just can't get any more volume. And there doesn't seem to be many paths out of that other than continuing to sell ice, continuing to hope for government bailout or something like that, and kind of just burning a lot of capital, trying to brute force your way to eventually get that scale that is maybe somewhat competitive. When you're chasing a moving target that is moving quite quickly, like Tesla is, that becomes even more difficult.

就像我们几天前讨论过的与经销商有关的事情一样。最终，当局面逼近关口时，汽车市场需要一段时间才会出现变化。但是，在这里完全有一种情况，其他传统汽车制造商的计划可能会停滞不前，他们无法获得更多的销量。除了继续销售传统汽车、继续寄希望于政府的救助或类似的事情，以及试图通过大量投资来迫使自己最终获得某种程度的竞争力，似乎没有其他出路。当你追逐一个移动得相当快的目标时，就像特斯拉一样，这变得更加困难。

Anyway, very interesting times right now.

无论如何，现在是非常有趣的时代。

Alright, the last thing for today, just a quick calendar update. Most likely no episode tomorrow depends what's going on, but I do have some plans that are probably going to conflict. So hopefully a quiet day and that can wrap it up for this week.

好的，今天最后一个事项，只是快速更新一下日程。明天很可能没有节目，这要看具体情况，但我有一些计划可能会冲突。所以希望能有个安静的一天，这样这周就可以结束了。

But as always, thank you for listening. Make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications. Also find me on X at Tesla podcast. And we'll most likely see you on Monday for the August 7th episode of Tesla Daily.

但总的来说，谢谢你的聆听。请确保你已经订阅并开启了通知。同时也可以在X平台上找到我的Tesla播客。我们很可能会在8月7日星期一的Tesla Daily节目中见到你。

Thank you.

谢谢你。