Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to my newest patrons, Nacho, Ellen, Nick H. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. A Bank of America analyst was just highlighting some of the ripple effects thanks to Tesla's Megapag. He highlighted what Elon said recently that people are underestimating this demand by probably orders of magnitude. I think people don't understand just how much demand there will be for energy storage. With that context, they were highlighting this company, Grenergie, which is building the biggest solar power plant with 1 gigawatt of capacity in Chile alongside its 4.1 gigawatt-hour battery storage project. He said, we like batteries and beyond Chile, we believe Grenergie can expand successfully into the US. But here's why I'm sharing this. At the end, they said, in the US, the company expects demand for renewable and battery storage to be driven by AI and data centers. That's creating an unbelievable new source of demand, which is a point I don't think it's talked about enough. Data center demand in North America shows no signs of slowing over the next 12 months. This coming from JLL and CBRE, two of the largest real estate firms on the planet.
欢迎来到 Electrified,您的主持人是 Dylan Loomis。首先向我最新的赞助者 Nacho、Ellen 和 Nick H. 致敬,感谢你们选择支持这个频道。美国银行的一位分析师刚刚强调了一些由于特斯拉的Megapack所引起的连锁反应。他重点提到埃隆·马斯克最近说的,人们可能严重低估了这个需求的数量级。我认为人们还不明白能源储存的需求将有多大。在这个背景下,他们特别提到了一家公司——Grenergie,这家公司正在智利建设一个容量为1吉瓦的最大的太阳能发电厂,并且配有4.1吉瓦时的电池储能项目。他还说,我们喜欢电池,除了智利之外,我们相信Grenergie能够成功扩展到美国。但是,我之所以分享这个消息,是因为他们最后提到:在美国,该公司预计AI和数据中心将推动可再生能源和电池储存的需求。这创造了一种难以置信的新需求来源,这是一个我认为没有得到足够讨论的观点。来自全球两大房地产公司JLL和CBRE的数据显示,未来12个月,北美的数据中心需求没有放缓的迹象。
In a recent report from JLL, they said demand continues to be at all time highs and data center growth is rapidly expanding from core markets in search of power. Data center developments will expand to wherever there's enough power and available land. As you may know, some of the main uses right now are governments and companies using AI for customer service chatbots, data analytics, and operations management. A director at CBRE said the US data center market saw the largest pricing increase of all commercial real estate assets last year. Construction costs have also risen due to ongoing shortages of generators, chillers, and transformers. And remember, Elon has said in the past, his not so funny joke is that you need transformers to run transformers.
This was also from CBRE. They said the rapid development of AI combined with a high demand for cloud services has led to a 70% increase in data center construction throughout North America in the past six months, as well as an insatiable demand for the electricity needed to power them. Just so you know, these data centers are commonly measured by the power they consume and those under construction by the power they're predicted to consume. In the first half of this year, more than 500 megawatts of new data centers were installed in the biggest markets across the US and Canada. The top five data markets in the US right now, Northern Virginia, Dallas, Fort Worth, Chicago, Phoenix, and Silicon Valley.
Although under construction activity is at an all time record high in primary markets, CBRE found the shortage of available power and longer lead times for electrical infrastructure continued to delay construction completions. In fact, power availability is such a top priority for site selection that companies are being forced to pre lease space between two and four years ahead of completion to meet their future data center requirements. And we don't need to get into the details, but of course, battery storage will pair very well with these data centers and they already are in many circumstances. Battery storage can quickly deliver backup power. They create less noise than diesel generators and they have a smaller spatial footprint.
And in Northern Virginia, one of the leading sites for data centers in the country, they're currently testing battery storage for these data centers. The data centers are the ones creating a lot of this load and the data centers are the ones who promise their customers they'd use only solar power or wind power and clean energy. You may remember back in 2020, a data center company switch plan to use large scale battery storage from Tesla to boost its use of solar energy for its massive data center in Las Vegas and Reno. At the time, switch said the project would feature one of the first large scale installations of the Tesla megapack. As Elon has said, these data centers need uninterrupted power around the clock in all weather conditions, which is where battery storage can address that gap. So this unbelievable new source of demand for battery storage is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. And even Wall Street is finally starting to put some of these pieces together. Full disclosure, I have precisely zero expectations for this industry the next two years I'm not invested at all, but I think it'll be interesting to watch the electric V-TAL space. There are companies out there like E-Hang in China that are looking to become the world's first uncrewed commercial flying taxi this year. We also have Joby and Archer planning commercial flights with a pilot in the Middle East as soon as 2025.
And then there's WISC that's owned by Boeing who wants to operate air taxis with four passengers and no pilot before the end of the decade. I think Boeing should focus on its current problems, but what do I know? Further, we have non-aviation companies like Hyundai, Toyota and Stellantis that have all invested money in this advanced air mobility market. But before a company like WISC can actually launch for real, the FAA will have to approve the aircraft every flight procedure and all emergency contingencies. WISC did say their machine itself will ultimately be in the hands of a flight supervisor on the ground part pilot part air traffic controller. This remote backstop can monitor several WISC flights at the same time. A representative said we're not removing humans from aviation we're changing their role.
E-Hang CFOs said they're looking to charge around $50 for a sight-seeing flight, which they could do about 10 times a day with two passengers around 265 days per year, removing about 100 days for bad weather, which would deliver an operating margin of around 50%. But these companies will of course need to figure out their landing and take off sites and ensure their near population centers. In the US, Archer Aviation plans to complete a high volume manufacturing facility in Georgia this year, and the site is designed to make as many as 650 electric planes annually. I'm guessing many of these launch dates ultimately get pushed back, but over the next two years, as it stands now, a few companies are planning to make some noise in the space.
One of my biggest concerns the next decade is the division in our world is only going to grow, and I think that's largely going to be thanks to the algorithms and AIs only going to make it worse. Even on X, the algo feeds you what you want, not necessarily what you need. That's part of why I'm such a big supporter of ground news, the sponsor of this video. Ground news is out to fix our broken media ecosystem by abstaining from manipulative algorithms. They're not affiliated with any corporate media or tech companies, and they've developed a very useful mobile app, web app, and a browser extension.
You can have a quick look at ground.news slash electrified linked below. I've found it to be the best way to stay informed with breaking news without being fed propaganda, as I can instantly see who owns each source, what the political bias is of that source, and how factual each source is. I'm a big data guy, so I periodically check my news bias using ground news. It shows me a history of the stories I've read over varying timeframes, and tells me how many of those stories actually lean left, right, or were balanced. I really am always trying to hear the other side to one, have a real understanding of their thoughts and concerns, and two, to have some talking points for when those real world conversations take place.
Usually once per day, after I upload my video, I'll jump on the blind spot page to see the biggest stories that are being disproportionately reported by either side. This alone gives me a quick understanding of how both sides can try to shape a narrative. I know a lot of you have already signed up for the vantage plan, which gives you unlimited access, and here are just a few of the messages I've gotten from you guys as of late. So if you'd like to support a company doing what I believe to be critical work, you can get 40% off the vantage plan at ground.news. Or you can use the QR code right on the screen. I think most of us would agree, pushing back against the media propaganda is a fight worth fighting in 2024.
After the Tesla Semi-accident, the NTSB has opened an investigation into the crash. The investigation will be conducted in coordination with the California Highway Patrol. The NTSB has long shown interest in EV fires involving lithium batteries, in part because of the challenges emergency responders can have with extinguishing the fires. Unfortunately, there's still nothing out there about what actually caused this accident and ultimately the fire. Seems like a good time for the reminder from the NTSB and data published in 2023, hybrid vehicles caught fire per 100,000 sold at a rate of 3,475. Ice vehicles were at a rate of 1,530 per 100,000 sold and EVs were all the way down at just 25 for every 100,000 sold.
Don't get me wrong, it's very important that firefighting crews do learn how to put out these EV fires, especially when you have a pack size of 900 kilowatt hours, but there are many companies working on technology to do this faster and more effectively. I've actually been in touch with one startup working on this very topic, but I can't say anything yet, stay tuned.
Sirela Venkataratnam, the Vice President of Finance and Business Operations at Tesla, has decided to leave the company. She said after 11 incredible years, I bid farewell to Tesla, reflecting on this journey, it's been nothing short of extraordinary. I'm not reading all of this, but she joined Tesla in 2013 when they were making about $1 billion in annual revenue, and she's leaving when they're close to $100 billion in annual revenue. She then went on to share a bit about her different roles and how she enjoyed her experience, and at the end, she said, as I take a break to spend quality time with family, reconnect with old friends, and focus on personal well-being, I'm energized for what lies ahead.
Given that she's been with Tesla dating back to 2013, my assumption is that she's freed up financially to do whatever she pleases for the rest of her life. I'm sure some people out there will say this is a sign that Tesla's finances are in free fall and their margins are going to be cratering, but those types of cons that really don't deserve to be dignified with any type of response.
On X, AJ shared a chart that I think is important as a reminder for everybody and especially folks looking for the next Tesla. This just shows the auto gross margins for Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid since their IPOs.
Thus, outside of one anomalous quarter for Tesla, they have been auto gross margin positive since IPO. Clearly, Rivian and Lucid cannot say the same. Just so you know, I always double check these charts before sharing them, so if you go back to Tesla's quarter to 2011 shareholder deck, you'll see automotive gross margin was at a record 22%. Fast forward one year to quarter one 2012. Automotive gross margin was very healthy at 28%. In Q1 2013, they did not specifically call out automotive gross margin, so skipping ahead to Q1 2014, we achieved a non-gap automotive gross margin of 25.4%.
So I think most of us here know that Tesla is indeed not like the others, definitely not now, but also not even when Tesla was more comparable to Rivian and Lucid in the early days. To understand this next one, you need the context, so April 8th of this year, the Australian Energy Market Commission received a rule change request from Tesla and some other companies.
This was to amend some national electricity rules. Tesla and others are seeking to amend the NER to exempt scheduled bidirectional units like batteries from being liable entities under the retailer reliability obligation. Tesla was arguing that the current liability under the RRO creates a trade-off for batteries between providing critical security services and risking non-compliance with the RRO. Thus, these RRO guidelines pose a disincentive to provide grid supporting services and ultimately a risk to the security of the national electricity market.
In short, the RRO was going to require energy retailers and some large energy users to hold contracts or invest directly in generation or demand response to support reliability of the grid. We don't need the details, but if battery storage was a liable entity, they would have higher reporting requirements, and there could be additional costs and fines that are allocated to non-compliant liable entities. So with that background, today we learned that big batteries could soon be exempt from an energy market rule designed to plug future supply reliability gaps.
The AEMC said we made a more preferable draft rule to exempt not only batteries, but also a broader set of storage assets like pumped hydro energy storage from the RRO. The easiest way to think about this, if the Australian market operator forecasts a reliability gap on the grid for a certain period, then there would be requirements that kick in for these liable entities, so a Tesla megapack if it was included, for them to actually contract sufficient amounts of wholesale electricity over that period of time, effectively to help meet their fair share of forecast maximum system demand. Tesla and battery storage are not exempt officially yet, the stakeholders can still submit feedback until October 10th. But the AEMC has officially proposed to exempt battery storage, a great thing for Tesla.
Malaysia's Minister of Investment just met with a delegate from Tesla, and they said a collaboration with Tesla is expected to enable Malaysia to become a major green tech hub in the region. This is still a smaller project Tesla's total investment in the country is only $13.5 million and it's largely focused on charging infrastructure. But they also discussed the huge potential of battery energy storage tech which is expected to improve the energy efficiency and stability of Malaysia's power grid.
Porsche just became a shareholder in a battery company that focuses on hearing aids and TV remotes. But in fairness, this company Varda does supply one Porsche model, the 911 Carrera GTS hybrid. I think as stutley they said, the deal speaks to the fragility of the European EV battery ecosystem, efforts to stand up reliable homegrown cell makers are going poorly. Domestic manufacturers are struggling with cost overruns and trouble scaling up by the time when EV demand is cooling. So what we have here is Porsche investing in this company basically to keep them afloat.
保时捷刚刚成为一家主要生产助听器和电视遥控器电池的公司的股东。公平来说,这家名为Varda的公司确实为保时捷的911 Carrera GTS混合动力车型提供电池。我认为正如Stutley所说,这笔交易反映了欧洲电动汽车电池生态系统的脆弱性,努力建设可靠的本土电池制造商进展并不顺利。国内制造商面临成本超支和规模化困难的问题,而此时电动汽车的需求正在降温。所以我们看到的是,保时捷投资这家公司基本上是为了帮他们渡过难关。
Their CFO said we aim to drive the company forward and would make an important contribution to keeping key technologies in Germany. Just to show you, I'm not making this up that it was a bailout. If you go back just a few weeks of our stock plunged as much as 80% to a record low. After the German battery maker said restructuring options to avert insolvency, potentially with the help of Porsche would leave shareholders with nothing. A lot of people are talking about this chart saying that BMW has surpassed Tesla in EV sales, but it's just for one month and that was in July, which was the first time BMW took this crown.
But if you look at the right and a year to date, Tesla still holds a significant lead. However, as we've been saying all year, year to date is zooming out, Tesla is still losing to themselves when compared to 2023. BMW EV sales on the other hand are up 49% year to date. One month is not a reason to panic but it will be a trend to watch as we head toward the end of the year. On X, the Cybertruck family took their Cybertruck to their local fire stations, community appreciation event and the crew wanted to see how to disable the main battery in an emergency.
West say Cybertruck engineers shared that saying our first responder page is now updated with the Cybertruck details as well. Which is right here and I will have this linked below. I do think that all Cybertruck owners present or future should leaf through this document and have a basic understanding. One of the more interesting case studies a company largely known for making cell phones, Xiaomi that has jumped into the electric vehicle world, just said their prioritizing growth of the EV business over margins for now.
Their CFO said we do believe scale will bring profit in the future. Right now at this point, I only have one skew, it's far away from what we call profitability. Xiaomi's not looking to become a niche player, they're aiming to become one of the world's top 5 car makers in 15-20 years. They said Xiaomi lost around 60,000 yuan per car sold, which is about 8,400 US dollars, and right now they only sell one EV, the SU7, which goes for around 30,000 US dollars. But they are looking to add a second skew as early as 2025 with an SUV similar to Tesla's Model Y. Xiaomi has also said they plan to make the SU7 available globally.
In a press release, Uber and Cruise have announced a multi-year strategic partnership to bring Cruise Autonomous Vehicles to the Uber platform. The company's plan to launch the partnership next year with a dedicated number of Chevy Bolt-based autonomous vehicles. Once launched, when an Uber rider requests a qualifying ride on the Uber app, they may be presented with the option to have that trip fulfilled by a Cruise Autonomous Vehicle. But given they did not disclose the number of Cruise vehicles that will be added to the platform, I'm expecting it to be quite low.
Dara Uber's CEO said as the largest mobility and delivery platform, we believe Uber can play an important role in helping to safely and reliably introduce autonomous tech to consumers and cities around the world. Which is exactly why I've been saying when the time comes, I think a deal just like this is going to be announced with Uber and Tesla. But Tesla may actually be able to do it in more than one city, whereas Uber said the offering will begin early next year in a single market in the US to start while declining to disclose the location. Cruise is targeting a return to running fully autonomous rides later this year and possibly charging fares by early 2025.
Don't forget, Uber has already partnered with Waymo to offer driverless rides or food delivery to Uber users in Arizona. And Dara recently said that autonomous players experience much higher utilization with Uber than they do without a network on a first-party basis. Going back in the archives, GM invested $500 million in Lyft in early 2016, and they had plans to develop a fleet of autonomous vehicles that could be summoned using Lyft's app. But that never happened as GM decided to pivot and roll forward with Cruise. On that front, a Cruise spokeswoman said the company remains focused on relaunching its own driverless ride hailing service and app despite the announcement. Cruise nor Uber have actually disclosed any terms of this deal. Nothing about how the passengers fare will be split between the two companies. But obviously for Uber, if they can offer rides without a driver, it's going to be more profitable for them. And on the cruise front, it's an easy way to tap into ride hailing market demand that already exists. And from Uber's perspective, I'm sure you've heard the saying if you can't beat them, join them. So Uber doesn't want its business model blown up when autonomy arrives. This is the strategy they have to adopt.
On the same day, Cruise has agreed to recall around 1200 Roblitaxes over hard-breaking issues. Cruise said it did not agree with Nitza's conclusion that a recall is needed, but it agreed to do so anyway to resolve this investigation. So Nitza has now said officially they have closed that probe into Cruise. However, Cruise still faces investigations by the US Justice Department and the SEC, following that accident with the pedestrian. Nitza said the ODI determined Cruise vehicles were involved in 10 crashes and four of them resulted in an injury of vulnerable road users. The news I'm sure you've all been waiting for, Cadillac is working on a new collaboration to create $5,000 pairs of sneakers, which are inspired by its growing EV lineup. Mark your calendars as sales will begin September 8th. You can head to Cadillacsignature.com to get a preview of the collection.
As the Tesla Semi-Expert Heinrich Zane has said, the first Tesla Semi has officially been spotted in Europe. Specifically, this was in Germany, which means it's likely headed to the IAA transport show where Dan Priestley is set to give a talk. As a reminder, that event starts September 17th, so hopefully we learn more then. Tesla stock closed the day at $210.66, down 5.65 while the NASDAQ was down 1.67%. It was an average volume day for Tesla trading about 15 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days. Don't forget to check out ground news linked below if you're interested to get 40% off the Vantage plan and thank you in advance as always if you do. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Please like the video if you did. You can find me on X linked below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.